


Bodies in Space (Director's Cut Edition)

by BairnSidhe



Series: Bodies-Verse Director's Cut [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Adoption, Angst and Feels, Autistic Jane Foster, Bucky Barnes Gets a Hug, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Creepy Alexander Pierce, Disabled Characters, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Found Family, Friends to family, Ruining Hydra's day, Saving The Day as Self-Care, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-14 11:35:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 42
Words: 99,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29418012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BairnSidhe/pseuds/BairnSidhe
Summary: Darcy Lewis has worked more than her share of years keeping Steve Rogers and James Barnes alive, and she's not stopping now. Good thing she has the Agents of HEROSteve Rogers is very happy to finally be in the same time and place as his best girl and best guy. It'd be better if they weren't all three bordering on crazy. Good thing he has The Avengers.Bucky Barnes got very very lost, and finding all the missing pieces might just take this group farther than they ever thought they would. Good thing he's not alone.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Darcy Lewis/Steve Rogers
Series: Bodies-Verse Director's Cut [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2032333
Comments: 162
Kudos: 24





	1. Meet the Future

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome Back everyone! Per usual with the Director's Cut, the plan here is to post everything all at once in one big binge-ready go. This time around we have roughly twice as many, though, so it may end up being a two-day posting. I do still plan to interact heavily with the comments section once I'm done posting (before then I'll be focused on getting stuff up) and fully encourage readers to chat with one another in the comments.
> 
> Shout outs to my sestra and kiddo, who provided beta-reading and proofing help. Valky, Beth, I love y'all.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So they've got Steve back. Now what?
> 
> Find Bucky, go on a date, save the world.
> 
> Not necessarily in that order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder, we left our intrepid heroes last time as they reunited in the present day. This is a change in the organization from the non-Director's Cut version, so mind the changes.

Darcy began her first morning in Manhattan by wiggling out of super-soldier arms. Steve made a very cute pouty face until she moved her pillow into his arms. Then she brewed coffee, ordered five breakfasts, and pulled up her email to start coordinating her comrades in the resistance. She answered several small requests to act, sorting them into "Yes? Duh", "Needs More Research", and "Not Yet" categories and letting her regional leaders handle the rest. 

She had maybe ten people who reported to her directly, but many more, she didn’t know how many, reported to them. She had the MI6 spy in Advanced Idea Mechanics look more deeply at what research was being funded so that SHIELD’s response team would be prepared. She forwarded an email from Hope Van Dyne to her father, since directly communicating was problematic for them, and okay-ed a strike by a small independent vigilante ship on a Somali pirate crew being funded by Hydra. 

Then she sent maybe the most important group email of her life.

**Sender: The_Lieu**

**To: Fresno!Ace, LeBoumBoum, Monty’s_Boa_Constrictor, StickOfMyOwn, Sabotage-My-Shoe, Write_That_Down, AfricanBulletAnt, Lucky13, ImATripleThreat, Itsy_Bitsy, AwwUsername**

**Subject: SHOWTIME-URGENT**

**Some of you know this, others do not. Kid From Brooklyn has been recovered, alive, well, and is in my keeping. I need all available eyes, ears, and any alternate sense organs turned on DC five minutes ago. Last known location of Last POW Standing is the DC area. Find him. Now.**

**-Lieu**

She waited a moment, tore her eyes from the screen and poured coffee, which summoned Jane in a stupor. Darcy got her settled with the mug of super sweet coffee, poured one for Steve, and took it in to him. After he kissed her thoroughly and inhaled his dose of coffee, one sugar, splash of cream, he stood up, only to realize he was in the clothes from the day before.

“We need to take you shopping,” Darcy declared. Her computer dinged several times. “Gotta check that, first though.”

**To: The_Lieu**

**From: Itsy_Bitsy**

**Subject: Re: SHOWTIME**

**Going to Russia in 24. KFB will need clothing, on route to assist.**

She grinned and shot back an email with Steve’s measurements, hoping they hadn’t changed since he’d been fitted for his last uniform.

**To: The_Lieu**

**From: AwwUsername**

**Subject: Re: SHOWTIME**

**Cannot aid due to Tess detail. She’s too chatty and I think we might see a wine-mom incident.**

Darcy frowned and made a note to herself to see what Eric thought.

**To: The_Lieu**

**From: Fresno!Ace**

**Subject: Re: SHOWTIME**

**On it, will coordinate efforts, give our best.**

Darcy smiled. “Okay, so we’re getting the scariest personal shopper ever and Fres is tracking down where exactly our dance partner is.”

“Fres, Fresno… as in…?”

“Yup. I just got used to calling him that when he crawled into some tech-laden hideout and became a username on the web full time.” She spun the laptop for him. “See?”

“And Itsy Bitsy?” he asked. She had to have been close already, because the door opened and a redhead in a little black dress and stilettos walked in like she lived there.

“Hi, what name are you using now?” Darcy asked the woman who always seemed really familiar but also not at all. Like a kid from high-school at the five year reunion.

“I’m back to Natalia, for the old country trip.” The red head closed the door. “Wow.”

“I know, right?” Darcy gloated a bit.

“I am very hard to impress, so take that seriously,” Natalia told Steve in an even voice, dry like a tundra but rich with humor. She smiled with a glint like a gold coin across a pirate’s fingers, a whisper of the idea and then gone.

“Natalia, I think I…" a thousand pennies dropped in Darcy's skull. "Were you ever…. There’s a place of ballet and bullet wounds.”

“I don’t talk about that,” she replied flatly.

“Neither do I. If you ever need to not-talk, I’m easier to get to than Zima.”

“I haven’t heard that name in years….”

“I haven’t been called that name in months. Lately they’ve kept him from being able to reach me on off hours.” She smiled brokenly at her daughter. “It’s not important. You grew up, moya malen'kiy pauk.”

“And your Russian has not improved. I brought boots, he left the wreck of his at HQ.” She fussed at Steve and ushered him off to shop, Darcy and Jane bemusedly tagging along and debating the merits of plaid.

Later, as Steve came out in black jeans, a grey tee that clung in all the right spots, and a denim jacket, he complained the shirt had shrunk. Darcy, who had seen Natalia swap his shirts for one size lower, shook her head. “No, I think it looks fine. Jane, opinions?”

“He could rake in a few hundred a minute just by walking into a male strip joint, so he’s good,” the astrophysicist said after a short glance up from her calculations. “What in the hell is dark energy doing over the Mojave?”

“That’s Eric’s project, the secret one, and our intel says something’s up. This happened a few times, when that new element got integrated into the system. It’s just a power surge, Jane,” Darcy told her.

“I wonder if Eric could get me into there, I’m sure this is what I’m missing.”

“No, Jane, Tess A. Ract is not someone you mess with. Find another way.” Looking at her man, she slipped an arm around his waist. “I found a theater doing a Star Wars marathon, I called, and they are indeed showing them in the right order. It’s five movies, but I think we have the stamina.”

“There’s a right and wrong order?” Steve asked as they left Jane to her Science! and her calculations.

“Yeah--4, 5, 2, 3, 6. Machete order. It’s the best way to watch them.”

“What about 1, isn’t the first one sort of important?”

“No, four is the first one, and Episode One was pointless, and it has some really bad writing and at least one character most of the world wants dead.”

“Fair enough.”

Ten hours later, they staggered out of the movie theater arguing playfully about what plot points were best and if it was Luke’s story or Anakin’s, although they kept switching points of view mid-argument. They crawled into bed beside each other so Darcy wouldn’t wake Jane and fell asleep.

<^>

Steve decided upon waking that he wanted to wake up beside Darcy every single day ever. Her hair was a mess, she’d forgotten her make-up and the sharp eyeliner had smudged softly into her shimmery eye powder. He wanted to draw this, but wasn’t sure if she’d object and he couldn’t get it right if he woke her. Art suffered for love, and he did love her, so he didn’t reach for the sketch pad they’d bought on the shopping trip.

A stray lock of hair fell onto her nose and he shifted it aside so she wouldn’t sneeze. She scrunched her face up. “Too early Jane. No science.”

“I’m really doing something wrong here if you think I’m Jane.”

She opened her eyes and sat up rapidly, scanning his body, still clothed beside her. “Did… oh god.”

“Relax, nothing happened besides sleep. It was our first date; I don’t move that fast. I am ninety-four.”

“No, I knew you wouldn’t… not when I couldn’t remember it. I knew that. But sometimes in my sleep I… hurt people. It happened once in the hospital, the orderly came to take some blood and I decked him. Hard. But I felt horrible about it and they figured out I hadn’t known it was him, so it’s not like I’m a reformed serial puncher, I just… when I sleep I don’t always know.”

“Darcy, love, I’m a super soldier, I’m probably more at risk of hurting you.”

“Steve, no offence, but I could take you. I scared the ever-loving crap out of Thor when he woke me up for breakfast, and I took him to the floor. His bones are like, three times as dense as a human’s, thankfully, but I could have killed him except for the alien thing. Jane developed some damn good reflexes, too.”

“Darcy,” Steve sighed, “I’m not questioning your ability, I’m just saying I got stronger.” The next thing he knew he was pinned face down to the amazingly soft bed, arms held behind him with one hand as her other stroked his face.

“Which is stronger, soft, or hard?”

“Soft,” he laughed. “I remember the lesson. I can still get free.”

“Try it, soldier boy. I dare you,” she teased. He tried to pop his hands free of her grip, but she shifted and he couldn’t move them. So he tried to roll, and somehow, Darcy popped up off him and landed straddling his lap. She smirked at him and rolled her hips. Suddenly breaking out of her hold was the last thing he wanted to do. She leaned down, her hair curtaining off the rest of the world as she sprinkled kisses on his jaw, never going near his lips. Her body shifted again and she pulled his hands from her hips and pushed them above his head, onto the padded headboard.

“Darcy….”

“What was that about getting free?”

“I was very, very wrong, you will always win in a fight, you are the stronger, faster, better opponent, but for the love of God, woman, I’m dying here.”

“Well I can’t let that happen after all my hard work getting you back.” She bent in for a deeper kiss, still holding his hands up. He happily surrendered to the one fight he was glad to lose, the only one he would give up on, the one of resisting his love as she kissed him and nipped at his skin and ran a hand up under his too small shirt. He wasn’t sure how, that shirt was way too tight, but her hands drove most of his questions away. She pulled back slowly, letting go of his hands.

“Darcy?”

“That was absolutely fantastic, but I severely need food first if we’re going to keep going, and maybe a shower. I will take care of you, Babe, but the body needs food and the clock says I missed Jane’s morning check-in to make sure she eats.”

“I understand. I could eat too.” He had a thought and gave her his innocent smile. “Buck and I used to share showers, you know, to use less water.”

“Very eco-conscious of you Captain Rogers,” she said, and his rank had never made his toes curl like that before. “I like the way you think.”

She ran out to check on Jane; he heard a fair amount of muted scolding as he got up and brushed his teeth. Darcy had left the door open a bit, so he knew Jane had stayed up all night. When he walked into the main room, Jane tried to get him involved.

“You don’t have much of a leg to stand on, Miss Walk of Shame! You spent the night with your boy toy! No offence.”

“None taken Doctor Foster, but trust me, if Darcy and I had done anything worth a walk of shame, you wouldn’t have been able to focus on whatever you were doing. It would have gotten loud.”

“Oh, I don’t know; could you have gotten me loud?” Darcy asked him teasingly as she replaced Jane’s coffee. “No naps, you know the consequences, Jane.”

“Who said I meant you? I haven’t ever made much noise during any sex I had, because idiots, and war zones, and idiots _in_ war zones, but I was really close to making sounds like a cat in heat this morning while we were both fully clothed. I let you get me naked, things are liable to get loud.” He sipped the coffee she had poured him and shrugged. “Fact of life.”

“God I wish I could say ‘we’ll be in our bunk’,” Darcy told him. “But I’ve gotten pings out of the Tess project and I need to give Clint orders, which means…”

“Getting intel to give smart orders, I know. You kick ass, Angel, I’ll poke Jane if she nods off.” He kissed her cheek which involved a bit of bending, then sat down next to Doctor Foster at the table her notes were on. Darcy smiled at him and muttered about agentus interruptus before settling down at her own computer.

<^>

In the tube, the man listened as the bad Not Steve gave an order to sabotage something. He didn’t know what, it wasn’t a word he remembered, but it felt wrong, very wrong, like when he first saw the red squid symbol. He waited until the Not-Steve left and sent as strong a pulse as he could to Darcy.

_DARCY!_

_Yeah, what’s, how are you doing this from the tube?_

_No idea. What’s a tesseract and why do I really not want them sabotaging it?_

_Powerful, deadly, and bad. He ordered it? You heard him?_

_The tube isn’t soundproofed. He talks to me_ \-- it -- _sometimes. He’s angry about the real Steve. He said to remove the control chip on the spatial… something, sorry, I can’t remember._

_No, this is good. Well, it’s horrible, but it gives me a good position to work from. Thank you Bucky, I love you._

_I love you too, Darcy. And Steve, I love Steve too. True?_

_Very true, and he loves you. I have to stop this so you still have a world to come home to, but we will come and get you out. I promise._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Tess Detail: guarding the Tesseract.  
> Zima: Winter (Russian) Bucky's name under Red Room.  
> moya malen'kiy pauk: My little spider (Russian)  
> agentus interruptus: play on childus interruptus, which is a play on coitus interruptus, being interrupted in sex
> 
> Notes:  
> The ship Darcy dispatched an okay to in the first section are classed as vigilantes because they're essentially stateless (they purchased the rights to list the artificial island micronation of Sealand as their home port and usually don't interact at ports that don't accept that) and not sponsored by a government, but they fight piracy and whaling that isn't caught by navies.
> 
> The group email goes to Morita, Dernier, Monty, Dugan, Jones, Maria Stark (on Howard's email), Hank Pym, Sharon Carter (on Peggy's old email), Antoine Triplet, Natasha, and Clint. This is Darcy's direct circle of trust, the people who usually enact her orders. Within HERO, all of these people outrank anyone not on this list, including Fury. Technically Howard and Peggy are 'retired' but that means almost nothing aside from now taking missions for fun, not as jobs. Maria and Sharon stepped into their roles, hence inheriting emails.
> 
> Steve's organic clothing would have been destroyed by removal from the ice unless thawed, freeze-dried, and carefully restored. While I can buy the salvage of his uniform's leather or textile parts for the Smithsonian, the risk of losing a toe was too high not to remove his boots quickly with scissors and then just re-create them.
> 
> Machete order was conceived of by the blog No Machete Juggling, which handles tech and programming nerd stuff, but also occasionally dips into the personal views of the blogger, including the best way to watch the Star Wars saga. You can find more on the reasons behind the Machete order by googling it, it's the first thing that pops up.
> 
> Sometimes people with PTSD do sleep-fight, and can react violently to waking up. This usually leads to guilt and other nasty feelings. Without knowing it, Steve does the right thing here, getting her to use her soft fight skills in a fun way that is gratifying.
> 
> Darcy's no nap policy is an attempt to help reset Jane's sleep clock to something less nocturnal. Astrophysicists, especially ones that do field work constantly battle this.
> 
> "We'll be in our bunk" was a recurring line from Firefly, when Wash and Zoe wanted to go have sex as privately as you can on a tiny little spacecraft crewed by your friends, family and co-workers.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> "Now you can go on in your career and be the Judge from that Alice’s Restaurant song. You know, where the lawyer walks in with twenty-seven 8 x 10 colored glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, and then the judge comes in…”


	2. Meeting Matt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy sends a warning, eats pizza, stops a robbery and meets a lawyer.
> 
> Steve handles shellshock, jokes with a lawyer, and learns about vaccines.
> 
> Bucky has a laugh at Pierce's confusion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some quick side info about the Author: The Author is Autistic. The Author is immune compromised. The Author's current and forever stance is that even IF vaccines caused autism (they don't, it's genetics) it would STILL be worth it to stop diseases like polio, measles/mumps/rubella, tetanus, hepatitis, and Covid-19 because an autistic kid is 1000% better off than a dead one. If you try to start a fight with the author about any of this, the author will definitely cry and then the author's sister will be morally obligated to bitch you out. You have been warned.

**To: AwwUsername**

**From: The_Lieu**

**Subject: Tess**

**Calamari is not good for Aunt Tess. Messes with her spatial control something. Keep an Eye out.**

Darcy only had to wait a minute before Clint replied to her warning.

**To: The_Lieu**

**From: AwwUsername**

**Always. Happy Hunting.**

Darcy swallowed hard and looked at the clock. Shit. Noon. Her connections with Bucky were always a crap-shoot on time, and now most of her morning was gone. Although, waking up late in Steve’s bed had been… not something she’d object to doing again. But since she’d zoned out, it might be best to butter him up some.

“Babe, it’s lunchtime, you want to order in, or go out?”

“Let’s go out, we’ve never eaten in modern New York.”

“Cool, I’ll call the concierge to ask for recommendations. You mind snapping Jane out of the haze for me? She needs to consume something; I think the mini fridge has hot pockets, since the room came with a microwave.”

“We can take her with us, you know. Jane is cool, I don’t mind.”

“Really? Best boyfriend ever. You pull her out of the Matrix and I’ll get us directions.”

They wound up taking a cab, since the place all three agreed on was a pizza joint in Hell’s Kitchen. The wait staff seemed overwhelmed watching three people eat three extra large pizzas and arguing over Steve’s anchovy issue, because as far as Darcy was concerned, they had no place on pizza or anywhere but the base of Caesar dressing, but Steve loved them. 

_ Everyone is a little weird _ , she reminded herself as she flagged for soda refills while he ate the last fish tainted slice. At least the Dr. Pepper he drank would kill the taste if they kissed later.

Somehow, Steve got into what looked like a very close call of a fight with an old man with an accent so thick, Darcy had no idea what he was saying. She was about to stop him from berating the poor man, when the guy slugged his arm, said something and walked off.

“I like that guy,” Steve told them.

“You were fighting with him,” Jane said slowly.

“What? No, that, that’s just how you talk baseball. It’s all anger and hand waving and agreeing that the ump was blind. And, now, apparently being salty that the Dodgers left and it’s a lesser evil choice between the Mets and the Yankees.” He shot Darcy a disappointed look, but not a strong one. “You never told me about the Dodgers.”

“When would have been a good time Steve? During the Depression, which I remember living up to that name, or during the War when your focus dictated who lived and who got a folded flag sent home to their Ma? Or the ice, when you were already mopey?”

“Fair enough. But really? The Dodgers, I thought you could at least count on the Dodgers.”

“What in the name gave you that idea?” Jane asked him as she stole the last pepperoni slice from Darcy.

They bantered back and forth and when the bill came due, Darcy whipped out the Amex Black that Fury gave her.

“I can’t take that, miss,” said the waiter. “The machine is down.”

“That’s fine, there’s a drugstore next door, I can go get cash.”

She left Jane and Steve arguing about arm-locks versus leg-locks and decided Jane had definitely spent too much time with James. Next door she was waiting with a new bottle of body wash and a box of condoms, just in case, behind a blind guy in a suit when she saw his shoulders tense. Glancing up she saw a man with a recognizable bulge in his jacket in the round mirror.

“Down, now!” she yelled, and threw the condoms at the guy as he was pulling his gun. He jolted out of the way and shot his leg. “Oh, you  _ moron, _ trigger safety is a thing! Blind guy, I need your tie, or he’s going to bleed out.”

“I’m Matt, actually,” the guy said as he pulled off his tie.

“Hi Matt, if I put your hands on his leg can you hold him steady? He won’t like this.” Darcy began to guide Matt only to find his hands unerringly found the correct leg. Shrugging she used the tie as a tourniquet. “I don’t think he hit an artery, it’s the wrong color and I don’t smell the right iron content. Congrats, Idiot Gunman, you’ll live.”

“I’m--”

“Not anyone I care about. You are Idiot Gunman until that wound heals. So, Matt, good news and bad news. Bad news, you are not getting that tie back, I did it tight enough that the ER is going to have to cut it. Good news, that tie was horrible and I will buy you a new one.”

“It’s not mine, it’s my friend’s, he likes ugly ties and thinking he tricked me into wearing one. I let him; it makes him happy.”

“Oh, would you like me to get you the most hideous tie I can find then?” she asked as Steve burst in. “What the hell, Steve? You were my collateral until I got the cash!”

“There was a gunshot, Darcy, I thought you… that… I just….”

“Idiot Gunman does not know jack about trigger safety and almost died from thrown condoms, nothing more, Babe. Oh, and this is Matt, his friend likes ugly ties, and I had to sacrifice one to my own good will saving the moron,” the man protested so she tightened the tie. “So I’m getting him a new tie, help us pick the worst one?”

“Sure, but wouldn’t he know what his friend likes better than us?”

“I’m blind, no light perception. Matthew Murdock, Attorney.” He held a hand in the right direction and Steve shook it.

“That right, huh? Used to be color blind, myself. Steve Rogers, Artist.”

“I bet you got as many cracks about your job as I do about mine.”

“Yeah, but I did get a treatment, experimental, not offered anymore. I was kinda the only recipient without really nasty side effects.” Darcy watched Steve try to forget what those side effects looked like. He shook his head and gave a shit eating grin Matt couldn’t see. “And besides, now you can go on in your career and be the Judge from that Alice’s Restaurant song. You know, where the lawyer walks in with twenty-seven 8 x 10 colored glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, and then the  _ judge _ comes in…”

“And it’s a typical case of blind Justice,” Matt finished with him. “That is actually a new blind lawyer joke, I don’t get many new ones. Good on you. Yeah, if you don’t mind getting an even worse replacement, Foggy will love it. But you don’t have to.”

“I know you can’t see it, but I have an Amex Black in my hand, we’re good here,” Darcy told him. She smiled at how easily Steve was making a new friend. He didn’t have a card, he was still an intern, but knowing that plight, she got her contacts into his phone and his into hers, in case she ever needed a lawyer.

<^>

Steve’s heart had stopped a split second when he heard the gun. Then he’d immediately tackled Jane to the ground and once the situation, veteran, gunshot, instinct, was all explained to the very concerned staff at the pizza joint, he went outside, oriented where the sound had been and sprinted to Darcy.

Finding her patching up a dumbass with a blind lawyer and offering to buy him a guaranteed ugliest tie ever was not as surprising as it should have been. Matt was actually very nice, and gave him directions to a good Catholic church, since his old one had been torn down while he was out of the country. Which was not a lie, but made him feel guilty. It must have shown, since Darcy slapped his head.

“No moping, I dealt with you moping at me all last year, no more.”

“Fine, sure thing Angel.”

“You’re lying, and I want you to know I know that, but okay.”

The police and ambulance came and took the inept robber, and all their statements and contacts, Darcy finished buying her things, and they made plans to get together with Matt to buy a tie after he got done making up for his absence to his bosses at a fancy sounding firm.

“Guess this wasn’t the date you wanted, Angel,” he said in the cab back to the hotel.

“You covered in pizza sauce from that tackle, and me up to my elbows in blood from saving a dumbass robber? I think it was perfect.” Darcy smiled at him.

“It certainly fit you both, Steve jumping into a situation without thinking, Darcy helping an idiot survive, sounds like a recreation of your first meeting,” Jane said from the front seat.

“I let you read that journal in strict confidence, Jane,” Darcy scolded, but Steve could tell there was no heat. “And you met your boyfriend by hitting him with a van. Twice.”

“But you tased him.”

“Yes, yes I did, and that is why he adopted me. Strong warrior culture, that dude, me tasing him was an excellent life choice.”

“I’d say you make a lot of excellent life choices, but I feel like that would be a perfect straight line for a crack about me an’ Buck.”

“Have you looked in a mirror, lately? I have a long and strong track of good life choices going back to the 30’s.” He moved to kiss her. “Eh, no, not until you shower. You smell like marinara sauce and garlic salt.”

“I feel someone should mention the blood reek coming off of Darcy, and I don’t think your man wants to.”

“What blood reek?” he asked. Then he sniffed a little. Huh. “Oh, that, uh, I’m used to that smell. Army. And before that, shite-kicker from Brooklyn, and also, my Ma worked at a disease ward in a hospital before she died. Now, you start smelling like some of her patients, I will be worried, but mostly blood is just white noise. White smell? What do you even call that?”

“Background, it covers a lot,” Darcy said, sniffing her own hands, which had much of the blood rinsed off. “And I can’t get most of the stuff that killed your Mom's patients, I got the shots for them years ago.”

“Shots?”

“Vaccines, preventative medicine, a few injections and I can’t get measles, mumps, polio, hepatitis, tetanus or like basically most of that stuff. Shots aren’t fun, but I read up on the symptoms while waiting for the doctor, and well… worth it.”

“Wow, that’s swell.” Steve pondered that, a needle prick and then you never had to worry about your kid dying, or being put in an iron lung or paralyzed or any of it. No more nurses like his Ma bringing home the things they fought.

“For the love of God, tell that to the Anti-Vaxxers,” muttered Jane. “Two hundred and twenty-two cases last year, because they think the vaccine causes autism and they’d rather have dead kids than weird ones.”

“Autism?”

“Brain thing, some people are born with it,” Darcy explained, “can also occur beside being very bright, but the people who have it do have to work a little harder to blend in. Bad cases can shut a kid down, but people like Janey are fine as long as someone reminds them to eat and sleep and stuff.” She shot a look up at Doctor Foster who was fidgeting. “But it’s not caused by vaccines. That’s hokum.”

“Bad science,” Jane said the way the Howlies used to say ‘Arnim Zola’.

“I’m not good at science, but you want me to go punch someone? I’m good at punching and I think it’s rotten that they’d put someone at risk like that. Measles, not fun. The fever, runny nose, inflamed eyes and sore throat weren’t too bad, but the cough near about killed me and the rash wasn’t pretty either. Then the vomiting and the shaking, but I was out of it by then, Ma had to handle that. Came to near about two weeks later and I had pneumonia on top of it.”

“Steve, Babe, the symptoms of measles don’t include vomiting or shaking, I think you had encephalitis, that comes after sometimes, especially with your vitamin deficiencies. Brain swelling. You’re lucky you aren’t dead, Honey.” Steve looked at her and realized Darcy was serious, and scared. He thought how he’d feel if she’d almost died before he met her and pushed her hair behind her ear.

“I knew that I was lucky when you saved my life, Angel. And you can’t get it twice, right?”

“No, but we should probably get him the H1N1 and other new stuff,” Jane called from where she’d straightened out to look at him. “Think Director Pirate Guy can get him a good physical? It’s not like he has insurance to pay the bills.”

“I was afraid I’d have to call him.” Darcy sighed. “I’ll contact him when we get back and are all showered.”

<^>

“Don’t tell me you couldn’t find him!” Not-Steve yelled at the phone. “I don’t care if he’s in a meeting, you get him!”

The man in the tube wondered if the bubbly feeling in his chest was happiness or not. He saved those meanings with Darcy, but he knew he liked it.

“What do you mean business dinner? Nick Fury does not do business dinners, not since we almost got him with that poisoned appetizer plate.” He listened and hung up without saying goodbye or signing off or even giving an order. He looked at the man in the tube. “A Golden Corral? What the hell?” If he had bothered to look as he left, he’d have seen the slight fogging of a huff of laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations  
> Calamari: Hydra  
> Aunt Tess: the Tessract  
> Keep an Eye out (capitalized inappropriately): be ready to be Hawkeye  
> Doesn't know jack: knows nothing  
> Straight line: the opening for a joke  
> Hokum: Nonsense, hogwash, idiocy
> 
> Notes  
> The concierge of a good hotel knows the city inside and out, and can give recommendations and directions to anywhere you want to go. They are powerful people, and much like librarians and telephone operators should be given huge respect, because they are usually the difference between a 4 star hotel and a 5 star hotel.
> 
> The Matrix was the first in a series of movies about humanity living in a virtual world as batteries for computers that took over the planet. The virtual world was called "the Matrix".
> 
> Anchovies are a salted fish that used to be pretty much mandatory on pizza, a relative delicacy in Steve's youth. Many people do not like them, because of the saltiness, the fish taste, or the fact they are served whole on pizza. Anchovy paste is the base of Caesar salad dressing.
> 
> The Dodgers used to be Brooklyn's baseball team, before moving to Los Angeles after their September 24, 1957 win over Pittsburg.
> 
> A folded flag is given to the family of soldiers who die in a state of honor with the US Armed Forces.
> 
> It's easier with a borrowed card to sign for a purchase and ask for some cash back than to try an ATM, where you need the PIN code. Thus, Darcy shopping and the funniest weapon I have yet written.
> 
> Trigger safety is a way of holding a gun so it cannot go off accidentally. This man blatantly ignored that, probably because he learned to shoot from video games or media, which often show lack of trigger safety. If you choose to own a gun, learn to use the thing safely or you too will be renamed Idiot Gunman.
> 
> Tourniquets (a tight band above the bleeding) are good field medicine for stopping bleeding if you know what you're doing. Without training, do not attempt them, you risk your patient losing a limb.
> 
> Arterial blood is a very dark, and smells strongly of rust, because it is heavily laden with red blood cells and oxygen. Paler blood with less smell is indicative of a less life threatening wound, or pernicious anemia as Steve had. With the War, Darcy has now seen and smelled all three.
> 
> Alice's Restaurant is a song by Arlo Guthrie from 1967 about a guy who gets arrested for littering and the prosecutor prepares a big visual show, but the Judge, or Justice, is actually blind, which leads to a pun about "Blind Justice".
> 
> An Amex Black is a credit card with a very high limit.
> 
> All the things Darcy lists as having been vaccinated against are standard state-mandated shots to attend public schools in America, although some parents do file "religious exemptions" to get out of vaccinating their kids. But all those things also were common causes of childhood death in the 1920's, 30's and 40's.
> 
> Steve is fantasizing about a TB vaccine, however, as of 2012 when this was written there was no vaccination for TB in the US. Kids in countries with a high prevalence of TB will get the BCG vaccine, but that's most effective in TB meningitis, not the pulmonary TB Steve would know and that Sarah Rogers is thought to have died from. (props to user timetravelingvampire for the info!)
> 
> Jane cites the actual number of measles cases in 2011, most from parents refusing to get their kids protected, because of the (already disproved) bad science Autism scare. Jane hates bad science as most scientists do, but this is personal to her, hence the venom.
> 
> Autism is a developmental disorder, that can cause ongoing social problems that include difficulty communicating and interacting with others, repetitive behaviors as well as limited interests or activities, and symptoms that hurt the individual’s ability to function socially, at school or work, or other areas of life. Additionally, 46% of people on the Autism Spectrum have higher than average intelligence. They may also be able to learn things in detail and remember information for long periods of time, be strong visual and auditory learners, and excel in math, science, music, or art. (sauce: https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/autism-spectrum-disorders-asd/index.shtml) My Jane is Autistic, which is why she needs a Darcy, to help her with the unpleasant symptoms and cheer the good ones.
> 
> Insurance is a fact of American medical treatment, and with no legal identity, Steve could not get treated outside of a Free Clinic, and as much as I support those (the older gen of my family all worked in them at one time or another) they are not ideal for what Steve would need, a full work-up by someone with a passing knowledge of his current medically perfect/maybe too perfect state.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “This is a busted-ass tie, woman. What do you want to make it worse for?”  
> 


	3. Meeting Fury and the Ties of Doom

It was close to nine when Darcy finally brought up Steve’s medical needs at the corner booth of the Golden Corral they’d picked as a neutral meeting place. Fury had passed all the tests she dropped into casual conversation, and while he might think she was the weirdest conversationalist ever, she was pretty sure he was clean. So she gave him the hotel room number, knowing he probably tracked the card anyways because paranoia recognizes its own, and he promised to get a doctor to run a house call. Then they both watched in fascinated horror as Steve hit the desert bar after nine plates of entrees.

“It’s kinda like watching a car crash, you can’t stop it, but you can’t look away either,” he said while Steve was methodically taking a little of every desert.

“You should have seen those two before I taught them cooking. Boiled everything. God it was awful, thank the lord for Mrs. Wu. Without her ramen and the extra spices she slipped Bucky ‘cause she thought he was hot, I don’t know if they would have made it  _ to _ the War.”

“Steve Rogers ate ramen?”

“Technically it was Udon. But I was overhauling that shit at sixteen. I was doing my best just to keep them alive and ramen was what I know broke people ate. So I sent Buck over to Little China to buy noodles for the slow-cooks. Very filling, high carb, it kept them alive which was a small miracle. He worked himself half to death, and Steve couldn’t hold weight if you duct-taped it to his hips. Hence the utter ravishment of the dessert bar.”

Fury nodded and slapped a few hundred dollar bills on the table. “Got your back, Lieu.”

“Good to know,” she said, mentally deciding that was going to be the tip for the wait staff who had to carry away Steve’s mountains of plates. “While you’re at it, go shut down the Mojave thing. It’s bad news.”

“What do you know about Pegasus?”

“The mythical winged horse? A fair amount, Dr. Jones was a decent teacher in Myth and Lit during undergrad. Don’t know how it relates to your terminal stupidity project,” Darcy said with a dry side-eye. “Seriously, that thing is dangerous, and when it kills you like it killed the first guy to use it, I’m not going to cry at your funeral.”

“She’s right,” Steve said, sitting down with his fifth plate of cakes, cookies, and chocolate covered fruits. “We saw what it did to Schmidt. Not pretty.”

“I dunno, the ass-end of space was kind of glowy and had nice colors, before it sucked him into oblivion.”

“He disintegrated, Angel.” Steve popped a miniature cheesecake in his mouth, then shrugged. “Space or no space, it didn’t look fun.”

“I didn't say it was fun, I said it was pretty. Besides, could not have happened to a more deserving guy,” Darcy said. “Except Zola.”

“Fucking Zola,” Steve agreed.

“Amen.” She clinked her glass against his. “Heard you lot hired him at one point, Nick. Bad move, that one. I’d watch anybody who was ever that close to him or any of his projects. But what do I know? I’m a crazy paranoid motherfucker with serious scarring.” 

Fury grunted and left.

“Did you have to?” Steve asked. “He was being cooperative.”

“He has pest control issues of the too many legs variety and I needed to warn him. Making a point about _my_ trustworthiness was a side benefit.”

That night she and Steve didn’t even bother pretending they slept together because of Jane, although Darcy did steal all the computers in the room to make her sleep. 

They woke up wrapped around each other and proceeded to cement the earlier thought of Steve’s that Darcy made very good life choices with a long and enjoyable morning make-out. When it looked like things might get more intense, Darcy swore, because the box of condoms was in the main room where they’d dropped the bag to go get showers.

“Angel, you don’t really think we need those?” Steve asked.

“Steve Rogers, super soldier or no, if you think we are doing the nasty without protection, you have lost what little sense the lord gave you. I am not getting pregnant right now.” Because, really, just cause the boy couldn’t get an STD didn’t mean she couldn’t get pregnant and the pill was only 91% percent effective for women who sometimes missed a day here or there. Which was her, with all the swapping.

“Whoa, Sweetheart, what gave you the crazy idea I’d do that to you? I meant, there are lots of ways to have fun that aren’t as risky. I grew up before reliable prevention was easy to get. I didn’t date the girls much, but before he hauled himself out of that river in Egypt, Buck told me a few things.” 

He slid down the bed as he was talking and then tugged her panties out of his way with his teeth. He nuzzled her bush, which Darcy would not apologize for leaving au natural, razors and the lady-junk did not mix. Steve didn’t seem to mind it, and soon she was squirming and demanding and maybe, although she’d lie if asked, begging a little. Only a little.

Steve switched from nuzzling to kissing and when he found the right spot, his hand came up to spread her open a bit so he could lick and suck. Darcy felt her back arching involuntarily as a hissed “yessss” escaped her lips, and then it was nothing but the sensations, the warm wetness of tongue, the slight scrape of teeth over less sensitive areas that put her whole body on alert, his hair in her hands, the firm… wait a fucking second.

“Steve? When did you buy toys?”

“It’s a finger Angel, and I will remove it the second you say so.”

“Oh. Proceed.”

He did and with vigor, finding her G spot faster than any man previous, then setting up a one two combo of licking her clit and rubbing her G spot until she saw stars.

When she came back to her body, all floaty and happy, Steve had gotten a soft washcloth damp and was gently cleaning her legs. “What’re you doin’?” she asked in a half-mumble.

“You uh, I didn’t know the ladies did that part, but it got very wet kinda all over and I assumed it would be like mine, and be itchy when it dried so… was that wrong? I’ve only ever done this with Buck, and we’re both fellas.”

“Not sure I believe that. You were too good. Suspiciously good. Better than any ex or fling ever good.”

“You remember when you were taking Human Sexuality in undergrad? Um, I may have looked up the section of your textbook on lady’s parts and why they work how they work, and then… considered how to make that a viable plan in case you and I ever… um.” He buried his face in her thigh.

“Steve, are you seriously blushing for doing research in case we ever had sex, so you could do it right?”

“I know it sounds lame, but…”

“Stop,” she commanded. “It sounds hot. If more men put thought into how to do this right, there would be more satisfied women and fewer faked orgasms. And maybe a lower divorce rate, who knows? I’m proud of you, Babe. Now, I do need to feed my scientist and give her back her computer, and then I will come take care of you, promise.”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Steve told her as he passed over her clean underwear. “I got hands, and your smell is all over me, I’m pretty sure that’s going to be a disappointingly short time. Not the part of super-speed I really want to show you.”

He grabbed the blue and white starred fake leather leggings she had thought he would tease her about from the drawer and Darcy quickly pulled her Wonder Woman costume tee on over her head and heard him chuckle.

“Watch it, buddy, if Princess Diana of Paradise Island ever asks me to run away with her, I might say yes.”

“Well, as long as it’s not a super _ hero _ , I guess I’ll have to resign myself. But if you run off with Bruce Wayne, I’m fighting him. I know I won’t win against Wonder Woman, though.”

“You are such a dork. To work I must go now. Yell if you need something.” Recovering Jane’s stuff, she went to give coffee and computers to Jane, then get more thoroughly groomed and ready.

<^>

Steve drew Jane and Darcy until the doctor came, went through Darcy’s protocol checks, and was allowed to examine him and give him updated vaccines, even if he was pretty sure he couldn’t get anything now. Then, when the man was gone, he did a landscape of the hotel room’s view. It was soothing, and he didn’t realize how the time had moved until Darcy stole his pencil so they could shop for a tie with Matt.

Tie shopping was sort of ridiculous. He’d done this countless times, but now, there was a whole new range of color and pattern and material. Darcy vetoed a few stores as ‘too classy’ and soon they wound up in a kitschy tourist trap shop debating the plum-backed tie with a chartreuse lady liberty, or the clashing carrot orange, neon teal and rust red attempt at a vertically running cubist skyline.

“This is nice of you guys,” Matt said halfway into the argument of badly paired colors versus the pure offensiveness of chartreuse. “I appreciate the ugliest tie search, but really? I don’t think anything can top the light-up novelty Christmas tie of ’05. Just pick one.” 

Darcy lit up with the look he was quickly starting to think meant trouble, bought the cubist atrocity, and dragged them outside and back the way they came. He followed bemusedly, and was caught up in admiring her to really process Matt grabbing her hoodie and pulling her back as a bike messenger flew past where she would have been standing.

“Wow, Matt, nice skills, dude,” Darcy complimented.

“Are you alright, Darce?” Steve asked her. She waved him off in favor of continuing to compliment Matt until he turned red.

“It’s not that big a deal, the bikes make a very specific noise, I have to listen for it all the time or I’d get flattened.” Darcy smiled at the grumbled admission and nodded slightly, which was when Steve got it. She was testing him, keeping the two of them safe when they had no idea who or what was after them. Steve squeezed her arm as she took them to a guy with a probably illegal set up of electronics.

“Can you do custom LED work?” she asked the guy.

“Yeah, I can do just about anything pretty mama, what you need?”

“This tie, LED lights in the building-looking parts, like little windows. Fifty bucks if you get it done now.”

“This is a busted-ass tie, woman. What do you want to make it  _ worse _ for?”

“A hundred if you don’t ask questions and make them twinkle.”

“Done.”

Steve watched in wonder as the man’s hands flew over wires and little LED bulbs and tiny scissors pricked holes in fabric. Half an hour later, Darcy slapped some bills in the man’s hand and gave Matt the modified tie.

“What’s it look like?” the lawyer asked, running his hands over the bumps of the now twinkling lights of the fake skyline.

“Like Picasso got fucked up on tequila and had a drunk one-night fuck with a cheap, overly home-proud postcard in a fucking ugly Christmas sweater that was on a shitload of crack,” Steve said instantly. “Or maybe LSD, can acid affect babies?”

“I don’t know, but I love the fact you still punctuate your sentences with liberal amounts of profanity,” Darcy said.

“Oh, damn, I keep forgetting I’m not in the Army anymore.” Steve slapped his own face, because his Ma wasn’t there to do it. “I’m sorry, Angel.”

“Steve, I should probably hold a world record in creative cursing, you do not faze me. I was in the Army too, remember, everybody heard me swear...  _ you  _ heard me swear. Swearing does not upset me.”

“It upsets me,” he told her. “That I forget.”

“Go to confession,” Matt suggested. “Father Lantom will give you a latte while you confess, or hot chocolate if you need to avoid caffeine, it’s very soothing. But you kind of have to badger him to give penance, and he prefers assigning things that will actually help you. He has this annoying tendency to be right about what you really need.”

“That is not like my old Church.” Steve thought. “What’s his stance on, uh….” He looked at Darcy.

“Queer rights,” she supplied. “I can’t in good faith put Steve in an enclosed space with a guy who might talk smack about people we both care about.”

“Love is love, I really don’t think Father Lantom cares, as long as you don’t hurt people with it or do it where small kids could see.” Matt shrugged and took his tie back to his friend.

“If it’s all right, I want to go to Mass tomorrow, Dollface.”

“Steve, go, it’s fine,” she told him as she held his hand and they walked back towards the hotel. “Just don’t make me go. I am happy as one of the unclean heathen masses, thanks.”

“You’re the best, Angel.” He kissed her hair and let the smell of her perfume fill his mind.

<^>

On a rock that categorically should not support life, Loki traced the lines of energy to Midgard, where waited his goal. A flicker appeared, a gap in the steady control exerted by primitive, but highly effective, Midgardian Seidkonur and Seidmadr. Tracing the pattern of the gap, he saw what must have happened. The constraints locking away the more potent powers of the Tesseract had been removed. Which meant he could use it as a doorway to their world, and that most valuable of prizes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Got your back- I'm looking out for you.  
> The nasty- sex.  
> Kitschy- tacky, cheap.  
> Tourist trap- a place that markets to tourists, looked down on by locals.  
> Pretty mama- a compliment, or a cat call, but in this case just a compliment to get the customer in a spendy mood.  
> Busted-ass- horrible or ugly.  
> Home-proud- very proud of one's house or hometown.  
> Midgard- Earth  
> Seidkonur and Seidmadr- magic users, or in this case, scientists.
> 
> Notes:  
> Project Pegasus (which I have seen in acronym form, but never found the meaning, so I'm using the word) is the Dark Energy research thing with the Tesseract.
> 
> 91% is the combined oral contraceptive efficacy rate for normal, not perfect use as calculated by Planned Parenthood.
> 
> When women climax they sometimes produce a large amount of natural lubrication. Darcy is normal here, Steve just didn't know that happened with women.
> 
> There are many Wonder Woman costume shirts and leggings, and I hold with DC's heroes existing in comics in the MCU.
> 
> Chartreuse is a really eye searing shade of yellow green and it is often mixed up with puce, which is a mauve-purple color. Both are held to be ugly by most of the population.
> 
> Light-up novelty Christmas ties and sweaters are a (weird) thing that I know happens in America and are intentionally as hideous as they can be. For some reason, people love them.
> 
> LED's are light emitting diodes, like tiny bulbs that never or rarely burn out. It's pretty easy to adapt clothing with them.
> 
> Crack and LSD are both street drugs. Crack is known to cause infant deformity and death if used during pregnancy, LSD or 'acid' is known to cause bizarre hallucinations.
> 
> It can be hard to break cursing as a habit, and many Army men come home and feel bad they have difficulty not swearing the way they did in the Army.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> "Is there anything you can tell us about the Tesseract that we ought to know?”  
> “You should have left it in the _fucking_ ocean.”


	4. The Gym

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Gym is where Darcy goes to blow off steam and work through her many, many issues. It's also where Steve goes to catch Darcy when she falls because neither of them is ever truly alone.
> 
> And they're about to be even less alone as a Day Unlike Any Other comes around and Heroes are needed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note about the dinkus (the symbols used to separate sections): My usual <^> dinkus denotes a switch of PoV, and the slightly more traditional *** dinkus indicates the PoV is the same, but a time jump has happened. In this chapter it's the next evening.
> 
> Some lines taken from The Avengers.

The next day, Steve showered, got dressed up, and as he left for Mass, Darcy couldn’t help but think some very sinful thoughts. Seriously, a hot man in a suit was sexy as all hell, who knew? Dragging her mind from the gutter, she dove back into work. 

Morita had hit dead ends, and she hooked him up with Red, and added that the wipe chair and cryo tube would both need serious juice, so they should check power usages. She authorized a financial leak to the IRS from her agent inside AIM, just to slow them down with an audit while a better response could be built because the project, while dangerous, made not a single fucking bit of sense. Then she ordered infiltration on a senator, and Treasurer to get friendly with a known double agent and work on getting the codes they used to hold Bucky if he got recalcitrant with them. Treasurer had come highly recommended as an agent by one of Peggy’s recruits, so she trusted they would get the job done.

She double checked Jane’s caffeine intake, put a mid-morning granola nut bar in her hand to let the automatic feeding happen, and paced. She was no closer to Bucky, no closer to the Squids, and she was sort of going insane.

When Steve came back, happy and relaxed, she almost regretted not going with him. But religion had never been her thing. Judo was her thing. After making sure he’d be okay with her going out, she called the concierge, changed into the workout sweats she liked best and went downstairs to catch her cab.

She beat the crap out of some heavy bags and cursed the lack of same day openings at the closest dojo that taught judo. She needed an opponent. The only other guys in the gym were an older dude and his skinny… son, maybe? The old guy was teaching the kid to box. That wasn’t going to go anywhere, ever, that kid had the wrong body. Now judo? That kid could learn to rock the judo moves.

“Hey! Mind if I show him a few tricks?” she called.

“And you are, miss?”

“Lewis, I’m a sandan- a third degree judo black belt. I don’t think your boy’s gonna be much of a boxer, but I like how he moves, he’d be good at tossing around bullies and jerks three times his size. That’s a judo thing, not a boxing thing.”

“I’m Ben, this is Peter. And what you teach better be just for the bullies.”

“Psht, obviously, rule one is you never use it unless you are protecting yourself or someone else. It has built in safeties; I was competing in all-state the first time I won a match I started. Sixteen the first time I really hurt anybody in a fight, and that was rage and softball pitching, not judo. Like any strength, you have to respect it, lose the respect, lose the strength. What’d’ya say, Pete?”

“I just want to make Flash Thompson stop hurting me.”

“School bully?” she guessed. The flush told her everything. “He like getting you by the shirt? Like this?” She grabbed his tee shirt and tugged gently, and Peter flinched, telling Darcy more than she thought even Ben knew. 

“Put your hands on my wrist, feel for the bones with your thumbs, yeah between them, good, now press, like it’s the last lap in Mario Kart and you can win but you need to drop the blue shell.” He did and her hand spasmed and his shirt slipped free of lax fingers. 

“Good. Now push out and away.” Her arm flew behind her and only trained balance kept her on her feet. “Then, when he’s off balance, in that one moment after you pushed, you book it.”

“What? I thought I was going to learn how to throw down.”

“Kid, unless you are in it for the trophies, the point is to knock the other guy off balance so you can run for help or an area where he won’t fight you.”

“That’s lame. I bet you can’t even fight.”

“Peter!”

“No, Ben, kid has an opinion. He’s _ wrong, _ but it’s his right to freely make an idiot of himself, as per the First Amendment of the Constitution. Now, that means I also have the right to prove Pete’s making an idiot of himself. See that bag, the big one, six feet tall, two feet wide? Filled with sand, at about 90 pounds a cubic foot, so it weighs, what, little under one thousand seven hundred?”

“1,696, and change,” Pete said. He followed her as she went to touch it lightly with outstretched fingers.

“My boyfriend could knock it off its chain, he likes that trick, it irritated the supply officer of our unit to no end. But that’s brute strength, nothing but throwing an unstoppable force at something. You really wanted to see  _ proficiency, _ you looked at our Comms officer, _his_ trick was splitting the bag. Bout my height, skinny, but he’d put a crack in the canvas he had to patch with duck tape. Nobody who saw him do that wanted to fight him. Impressive, huh?”

“Your boyfriend was in the Army?”

“So was I.” Without looking at the bag she tossed a side kick at it, and a flash of a kid behind glass hit her eyes. The next thing she knew, the owner of the gym was beside her, talking her down. Peter was staring at the growing pile of sand beside her and the hole punched in the bag at gut height.

“Ma’am, what was your rank?” asked the gym owner.

“Lieu… lieutenant. I’m a lieutenant.”

“Where’d you serve?” His voice was calm, even... it would be grounding if his question weren’t so fucking terrifying to even think about answering.

“Can’t tell. Can’t ever tell.”

“Oh, damn, that kind,” he said, understanding painting his voice in the warmth she associated with sunshine and Steve. She leaned into it, following it back to sanity and the present. “It was hell, weren’t it?”

“Hell doesn’t have innocent kids locked up like animals. I don’t know if there’s a word for what that was. I’ll pay for the bag.”

“You’re paying for enough. We close at 7:30, come back then and you can break anything you want in here.”

“Can I bring my Captain? He just got back.”

“Yeah, Ma’am, you bring your whole squad if you want,” the gym owner said with a smile. “Anything else?”

“Get that kid a recommendation to a martial arts class, judo, aikido, karate, that Brazilian dance stuff, something built for him, and you use the card on my file to pay for a month.”

“Will do Ma’am.” He shot her a salute as she stood, and she reached out and fixed it, then returned it.

She took a cab back and curled up in bed hugging a pillow.

<^>

Steve saw Darcy walk blankly into their room and shut the door. He looked at Jane, and the scientist shook her head.

“She had an episode, and feels guilty about it, and there is no logic that will bring her around to understanding it’s not her fault. I’ve never gotten her to come out of it, she’s shot until dinner. Won’t even eat lunch.”

“But… Darcy would never hurt someone on purpose. She’s a good person.”

“She’s a person in a lot of pain. She is living in emotion-land right now, and everything hurts and it feels like it’s never going to stop. That’s how she describes it after. What’s worse is, even after she gets up again, I never can convince her that the pain isn’t a punishment for having an episode.”

“It’s not right.” Steve went to the closed door.

“I know, but I don’t know how to help her or fix it. I’m not sure it can be fixed. I had to accept I can’t take away her pain… and I hate to say it, but you might have to too.”

“I can accept that, I will never accept that she has to be alone in that pain, Doctor Foster.” He went in and closed the door on a stunned Jane.

“Angel?”

“Go ‘way.”

“No. Look, I won’t touch you without permission, or even sit on the bed, but I’m not leaving you alone. You and Bucky, when we were facing the Skull for the first time, and the beam snapped and I said go, what did you say?”

“Never, not without you.” She was still talking into the pillow.

“That place,” he spat the word, “was nothing but pain for you two. I know that. And it was burning around us like the fires of Hell with Schmidt having just revealed his face as the Devil Himself, and you still wouldn’t leave, because that would mean I was there, alone, in a place of pain and punishment. So, no, I will _not_ go. Not without you.”

“You didn’t deserve the punishment!” she snapped, sitting up to glare at him with red eyes.

“You don’t either. What do you need?” He made his question an order.

For a long moment he thought she wasn’t going to answer him. Stubborn fire lit her eyes.

“Ice cream from the mini fridge and snuggles.”

“On it, Angel. I love you, you know that, right?”

“Yes, or you wouldn’t hound me into taking help. Thanks Steve.”

He returned with three little things of Häagan-Dazs, and the iPod she’d given him and cued up a song he’d found earlier. It was a shaky recording, the singer obviously a talented amateur and no more but he loved it, because he’d realized partway in it was Darcy singing. He curled around her with one bud in her ear and one in his as she sang of never being alone. 

Darcy snuffled into her ice cream. “God I sounded horrible.”

“It’s my favorite song, Angel. Because you’re right, whatever we faced, we faced it together. Never alone.”

“Go to a gym with me later? The guy said we could wreck the bags if we need to.”

“Sure thing, Angel. Can I trade you this strawberry for the cookie-dough?”

They went to the gym that night, tested each other’s styles against one another, broke a few bags, and went back to the hotel to shower. And they did save some water, even if the shower lasted longer than normal.

Darcy warned them not to develop predictable routines, but there were some patterns. She worked with the resistance or with Jane while Steve drew and caught up on what he’d missed in Darcy’s lessons, courtesy of a StarkPad bought on SHIELD’s dime and hotel wireless. They ate lunch in the mid-afternoon, catering to Jane’s schedule, but they never went to the same place twice for food. There was so much to try now, anyway, it just made sense. Some days they went to the gym, usually at closing time, and they’d spar and take turns on the bags until they were sure they could sleep, then they’d clean and lock up, and go home.

They stayed in on Saint Patrick’s day, watching the parade on the TV and cuddling.

“Buck would have hated this,” Steve said with a wry grin.

“Not a fan of crowds?” Darcy asked.

“His birthday is tomorrow,” he told her. She stiffened in his arms, the shift of someone who thought they should have known something. “He hates his birthday, he wouldn’t have told you. At one point he convinced the entire 45th Division his birthday was actually the 15th. They were good guys, really sour about having to change their insignia just because some asshole got Nazi cooties on it.”

“Ugh, tell me about it. I wanted to get Jane some jewelry or something to help her feel close to Thor, but almost everything Norse Pagan has had grimy Nazi mitts on it.” Darcy shrugged, relaxing against him. “Tomorrow, we go to the gym. You’ll need help sleeping if it’s his birthday.”

“Yes, Angel,” Steve said.

***

Fury walked in as Darcy was waiting in the corner for Steve to re-hang the bag they were demolishing.

“Trouble sleeping?”

“I know I’m ninety-four, but that doesn’t mean I go to bed at eight, Sir.”

“Then you should be out, celebrating. Seeing the world. Sort of thought Lieu would have had you in Paris by now.”

Steve and Darcy had seen Paris. It had been burning. Neither wanted to go back. He didn’t tell Fury that. Instead, he used all the assumptions he knew people held as a shield. “When I went under, the world was at war. I wake up, they say we won. They didn't say what we lost.”

“We've made some mistakes along the way. Some very recently.” Steve heard Darcy huff, but he knew she’d be in complete shadow, near silent to any but him.

“Are you here with a mission,” he paused, long enough for Fury to catch it, “Sir?”

“I am.” So Fury could play terse. He’d never beat Phillips and Phillips had never scared Steve.

“Trying to get me back in the world?”

“Trying to save it.” He pulled out a file to show to Steve. Steve didn’t take it; he knew what was in it.

“The Cube, Hydra's secret weapon.” He scoffed. “You’re an idiot… Sir.”

“Howard Stark fished that out of the goddamn ocean when he was looking for  _ you. _ He thought what we think; the Tesseract could be the key to unlimited sustainable energy. That's something the world sorely needs.”

“I second the Captain’s opinion,” Darcy said, stepping into the light by the bags, arms crossed sternly. “You are an idiot, possibly even a moron. So was Howard if he seriously thought that dealing with that thing for any reason was anything but a giant mistake. Never get genius and infallibility confused, Nick.”

“Who took it?” Steve asked.

“He's called Loki. He's... not from around here. The world has gotten even stranger than you already know.”

Steve and Darcy shared a look. Thor had told her about his brother, his Dad, a lot of stuff. So had Fandral, although he saw things Thor hadn’t. Between Darcy and Jane, Steve was pretty clear on the whole Asgard political feces and fan collision.

“At this point,” Steve said, “I doubt anything would surprise me.”

“Ten bucks says you're wrong. There's a debriefing packet waiting for you at your hotel. Is there anything you can tell us about the Tesseract that we ought to know?”

“Yeah, there is.” Steve frowned at the older man. “You should have left it in the  _ fucking _ ocean.” 

Darcy laid a hand on his arm, holding him back with a light touch.

“Barton and Selvig?” she asked Fury.

Fury startled. “Taken by Loki too. Turned somehow. Barton tried to kill me.”

“No he didn’t,” Darcy said with a laugh. “You want to know how I know? You’re  _ alive. _ We’ll be in touch.”

<^>

In a barren tunnel, Clint looked up at Loki, seeing his blue eyes spark with an energy he couldn’t name. The scepter controlled him, but not strongly, he’d been forced to preserve Loki’s life, but not to take the Director’s, only to shoot, not kill. Clint suspected his own eyes were now a touch too blue, as Selvig and Loki’s were.

“Tell me of this realm’s greatest threats to my dominion.”

“The Lieu, the Black Widow, the Avengers Initiative. In that order. The Avengers are not yet a team, but together they have the power to stop you. The Black Widow will take this personally. She’s a spy and a killer and I gave her my trust years ago, and she has never stopped thinking she owed me for assuming she was capable of basic human decency. The Lieu, nobody knows about the Lieu. Assumed female, been preventing world domination for seven decades, saved countless lives, and has countless more, loyal, skilled, and ready to fight at a single command. Killed the last man who actually used that,” he said, pointing to the case.

“I understand. Take the Siedmadr and get him what is needed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Book it: run away quickly.  
> Throw down: fight.  
> Lame: uncool.
> 
> Notes:  
> Many people find comfort and relaxation in religion, Steve is one. Other people prefer more secular coping mechanisms, as Darcy does, neither is better or worse. However it can be not as satisfying for a good martial artist to practice sans-sparring partner, especially if the goal was working off steam.
> 
> Peter Parker canonically has a horrible build for boxing, a type of fighting commonly taught to boys in New York, as it is seen as more masculine and odds are Ben Parker knew how already, thus cutting out the paying for a teacher. He's pre-powers here, at about age 10 or 11.
> 
> The First Amendment covers all forms of free speech and expression, but as many do not realize, only prevents the government from saying you legally can't say a thing, not other individuals proving you're wrong.
> 
> Duct tape was around in WWII, used for sealing ammunition boxes at first although it became a go-to for many things, on the recommendation of Vesta Stoudt, an ordnance-factory worker who did initial testing herself before writing the president. The end product was colored in army-standard matte olive drab, and nicknamed "duck tape" by the soldiers.
> 
> Putting a hole in a heavy bag is not easy, and normally Darcy could not, she could split it, that's a skill most dans have, but the flashback gave her an adrenaline boost and threw her strength upper limit away.
> 
> A soldier who can't tell where they served is normally Spec Ops, specializing in unrecognized acts that push the edge of acceptable warfare, and generally have the worst post-service psych issues, in part because they CAN'T talk about it.
> 
> A proper military salute is actually a little harder to do than most people think, fixing an incorrect salute before returning it is more polite than letting someone do it wrong.
> 
> Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can result in the symptoms Jane lists. The majority of people would not be able to get someone in Darcy's situation further than Jane has, Steve gets farther because he knows what it was like and how to punch her buttons. This is not Jane being a bad friend, this is Steve being a way better choice to snap Darcy out.
> 
> I actually wrote the lyrics to Never Alone, which you can find in the original BV series, or you can wait until I get the compilation work of poetry together and post it.
> 
> The 45th Division's insignia prior to WWII featured a gold "whirling log" symbol on a red background. The whirling log is a good luck symbol of the Navajo tribe and its use was meant as a way of honoring them. Unfortunately, it's the same shape as a swastika, and the 45th changed their symbol to a thunderbird in 1939. Thunderbirds are spirits of war and storm, and the Ojibwe legends say they punish humans who break moral rules.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “How can a dead man dodge emails?”


	5. Avengers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy, Jane and Steve arrive on the Helicarrier, much fan-boy/girl-ing is tolerated, and Jane helps them find Loki.
> 
> Steve helps take down Loki, meets Tony Stark, discovered the world is still pretty small, and takes joy in not taking Tony's bait.
> 
> Tony is massively confused by all this crap and very worried about his possibly not dead parents.

Darcy wasn’t surprised when Coulson was the one to pick them up the next morning. Coulson seemed more surprised than he should have been Jane was standing with them.

“She’s a civilian,” he said in a flat tone.

“She knows more about Dark Energy than anyone on the planet who isn’t mind controlled,” Darcy said, meeting his bland disapproval with steel in her voice. “She’s been tracking ancient Asgardian power remnants for a year. If you give her an active source, she’s bound to get there faster. Jane is an  _ invaluable _ resource, and you are  _ lucky _ she cleared her schedule, especially with how you treated her last time.”

The plane ride was awkward, Coulson trying not to fan-boy all over Steve as Steve and Darcy looked over Jane’s shoulders at the screen with footage from Harlem and the Culver attack.

“So this Doctor Banner was trying to replicate the serum that was used on me?" Steve asked Coulson to give the man something to talk about that wasn’t the man’s crush.

“A lot of people were,” Coulson told him. “You were the world's first superhero. Banner thought gamma radiation might hold the key to unlocking Erskine's original formula.”

“Moron,” Darcy said grumpily. “Steve is only moderately sane because of friendly intervention from an outside source that can’t be duplicated. I’m surprised he didn’t get body integrity identity disorder from going skinny to buff in 3.5 seconds. That stuff is supes unpredictable, did he even do lab testing?”

“Darcy, Doctor Banner is a leader in gamma energy manipulation, he’s a genius,” Jane scolded. 

“That doesn’t make him immune to idiocy,” Darcy said, remembering the same point being made to Fury and how that fallacy had landed them in this mess to start with.

“Maybe the loss of self-identity and possible intelligence drop could come from something similar to BIID, amputation of powers, not limbs… But Banner is still  _ not  _ a moron, his anti-electron collisions papers were some of the best I’ve read.” Jane looked up to see them staring at her. “What? I’m an astrophysicist, there’s some overlap.”

“So, Steve, me, Hulk if need be, who else got the invite?” Darcy asked to draw attention away from an embarrassed Jane.

“Stark, maybe, he’s….”

“Annoying, egotistical, unpredictable and somehow still somewhat charming?” Steve guessed.

“I wasn’t going to be so polite, but yes.” Coulson sighed. “And we pulled Romanoff to go get Banner, they’ll meet us at the carrier.”

“Whoa, hold up, you sent a woman trained from age four to be a sneaky liar and backstabber to go get a man with some understandable paranoia and problems with authority? Level with me, Sam-I-am, are you crazy? Because as someone who has been institutionalized, I feel I should get to know who the other loons are.”

“With Barton compromised and the entire Pegasus site demolished, we had staffing issues. I could have sent her to Stark.”

“Okay, right call,” Darcy sighed and refocused. “Gear? I don’t routinely walk around with my Super Woman outfit on under my shirts.”

“We have that covered. Captain Rogers, we've made some modifications to the uniform. I had a little design input." 

“The uniform? Aren't the stars and stripes a little... old-fashioned?”

“With everything that's happening, the things that are about to come to light, people might just need a little old-fashioned.”

“He’s right Steve, you’re an icon. Like King Arthur returning in Britain’s most desperate hour. I’m a shadow, though, a ghost, I hope you took that into account for mine.”

“Fury handled yours, I think you’ll like it.”

They landed and Natalia met them and ribbed Coulson about his crush while Jane went to fan-girl at a rumpled man Darcy recognized from the dossiers. Mostly Darcy just scanned the deck, gawking like a tourist. She went up when Jane waved and Steve followed.

“Doctor Banner,” Steve said when Jane got tripped on introductions. “Word is you can find the cube.”

“Is that the only word on me?” the man replied a bit self-deprecating and a bit sarcastic. Darcy liked it. 

“Only word I care about. I throw a mean game of Frisbee; I’d take it as a favor if that’s the only word you cared about.”

“I care about one other thing," Darcy said. "Doctor Ross, is she okay?”

“Betty?”

“Yeah, she was a good teacher, and she’s AWOL since that asshole attacked the school. Do you know… is she….”

“She’s fine, in hiding like I was, only better at it. She has to be, the General is still--”

“HE STILL HAS HIS RANK?” Darcy interrupted, rage boiling through her. “Oh my god.”

“His word against the big guy’s bellowing. Betty went under, to stay safe.”

“Understood. God, Steve, can you imagine... a General keeping his stars after attacking a  _ school? _ Never would have flown when we were in the Army,” she grumbled, realizing she sounded old and grumpy, but not caring.

“Because Peggy or Philips or Buck or I would have put a boot so far up his ass he tasted shoe polish, Angel. Guess you were right about not taking your eyes off of anybody.”

Darcy huffed and went back to gawking. She pegged 37 security cameras and 12 hidden guards before Nat joined them.

“Everyone, you might want to step inside in a minute. It's going to get a little hard to breathe.” 

“Is this a submarine?” Steve asked.

“Really? They want me in a submerged, pressurized metal container?” Banner laughed.

“Think up, not down,” Darcy said. “The planes would never survive on an open deck under the weight of the ocean. And Steve, you already used your one free pass crashing a plane carrier.”

Steve nodded at her stern look as turbines that looked like odd VTOL engines rose up.

“Oh, no, this is much worse!” Doctor Banner said to Natalia as Steve and Darcy walked into the busy bridge.

“I get my ten bucks yet?” Fury asked from his place on the bridge.

“I already crashed a flying carrier. Sorry,” Steve said, not looking at all sorry.

“Okay, Jane, do you want to do the thing where you say words we don’t understand now, or should I go ahead and cliff note it?” Jane’s phone rang before she could answer Darcy.

“Wow, I have great reception here. You go on, it’s Red.”

“Okay, so, summary, Jane used her knowledge of Asgardian energy signatures to make an algorithm to track recent usages. Red snagged us some satellites with free time to do scans, this is probably the result.”

“Snagged a satellite?” Banner asked incredulously.

“No, don’t be silly, one would never give us the right coverage.  _ Satellites _ , plural. Jane, what’ve we got?” Jane was plugging her phone into a large screen on the runway bit.

“Map, and video footage.” Sure enough up popped a man in armor, changing into formal wear, minus actually stripping and redressing. The map was familiar too, somehow.

“Aw, I  _ liked _ Stuttgart, very good food,” Steve complained. “So, I hear we have suits?”

<^>

As the cloaked jet dropped Darcy off and circled around, Steve watched in horror at the monitor as the madman corralled and cowed the civilians. His speech made Steve a little sick, but then a man stood, tall and brave despite his wrinkles and his tremor caught hands.

“Not to men like hyu.”

“Ah, but there are no men like me.”

“There are always men like hyu,” the man spat in disgust.

Steve saw the anger flash bright in Loki’s blue eyes and dispensed with the line, dropping from the door just in time for the blast to hit his shield and not the man. 

“You know, the last time I was in Germany, and saw a man, standing above everybody else... we ended up  _ disagreeing.” _ He paused to look around him where civilians were pointing and taking pictures and videos with phones. He was just as much a dancing monkey as ever, but he needed to be, more than any other time, he needed to give out hope. “You’ll notice I’m still here, and he’s not.”

“The soldier,” Loki sneered. “A man… out of time.”

“I’m not the one who’s running out of time,” Steve snarled, watching as a shadow flickered into position. Nat de-cloaked the jet behind him as planned.

“Loki, drop the weapon and stand down,” she announced over the intercom. 

Loki fired his spear thing over Steve’s head, and it was hard not to check if Nat had dodged, but Steve stepped up, grabbing attention once more as panicking civilians made it hard to see what he was looking for. He blocked another shot, took a punch that flipped him and as he was standing, he felt the spear on his head.

“Kneel,” Loki hissed at him.

“Not today,” Steve said, shoving the spear aside. “Tomorrow doesn’t look good either.” 

He thought he was going to have to hit the guy when a loud blast of music hit him from behind. Loki glanced up, distracted, but Steve kept his eyes focused behind Loki. He did make a mental note to ask who the artist was, because that was some good rock there, and then Iron Man landed beside and a touch in front of him in his probably trademarked pose, standing with a whir of machinery.

“Nice of you to join us, Iron Man, if you wouldn’t mind, can you do me a favor? Just wait a second.”

“What for?” the superhero said as he drew aim and the repulsor on his hand began to glow and whirr, but seconds before he could fire, Loki crumpled to the ground.

“I promised her first shot,” Steve explained as Darcy blew on her taser like a movie gunslinger and tucked it in the pocketed belt of her blue jumpsuit that showed more of her muscle and curve than her normal looks ever did. The wing flash patch of the Commandos was in red on her left shoulder, but other than that and her skin, she was a spot of night.

“Cap, can you carry this? I don’t have super-strength,” she said, nudging the crumpled alien godling with a foot. Steve scooped him up over a shoulder with an ‘oof’.

“This guy is heavy for his size.”

“My other option was Stark, now into the jet, chop chop.”

“I feel I should be insulted by that,” Stark said to nobody in particular.

“Go thank the man who stood up, will ya, since I’m doing the heavy lifting?” Steve asked, ignoring Stark the way he would have ignored Howard.

“On it Cap.” 

When Darcy rejoined them in the jet, her first move was handcuffing all four limp Asgardian limbs to the chair. Her second was to smile at him. “So you know, the man that stood, that was Colonel Göttingen, he was about to be executed for treason against the Reich when news hit the prison camp that Hitler had died. He wanted me to tell you, he knelt once before and regretted it, so he will never kneel again.”

“Didn’t we stop to help a Frau Göttingen give birth near here?”

“I told him to tell Lotti and baby Stefan hello.”

“Small world.” He looked at Stark as the plane lifted off. “Really tiny, actually.”

<^>

Tony did not know what to make of Darcy Lewis, or Loki, or even Captain America. He’d heard so many stories, he felt like he knew the man, but as he poked around looking for chinks in the perfect soldier’s armor, he didn’t find who he thought he was looking at. No barb scored a hit, it was like the guy didn’t have a dark side, which set all kinds of alarms off in Tony’s head. Even teasing him about his age got very little response.

“Pilates?” Rogers said, the shocked look on his face being the first crack in the mask of the perfect soldier Tony had seen.

“It's like calisthenics,” Tony explained, hoping to get under the mask a little more. “You might have missed a couple things, you know, doing time as a Capsicle.”

“I know what it is and it’s nothing like calisthenics, Tony,” Rogers insisted. He was right, which was galling, but at least the mask had slipped. “I’m just confused why you think I do Pilates. This is not the build of a guy who does Pilates.”

“Oh, are you too good for modern techniques?” Tony snarked. Whatever he was expecting, the fond eye roll and glimmer of a wicked grin wasn’t it.

“Stop encouraging him, Steve,” Lewis ordered, standing up to glare at Rogers, but she also had the grin, which deepened as she shifted her gaze to Tony. He had the unpleasant sensation of being reverse engineered as she raked her gaze over him and said the exact last thing he wanted to hear. “If it’s even possible,  _ you _ are worse than Howard.”

“Leave my Dad out of this, Short Stack,” Tony said hotly, feeling the burn of a blush at his neck as his own mask came down faster than Rogers had.

“Hard, when he’s dodging my emails and I’m really freaking pissed at him, but sure, ix-nay on the Oward-hay.” She shrugged, and all of Tony’s attention narrowed down on her. Distantly he realized that was her goal, to get him off Rogers.

“How can a dead man dodge emails?” he demanded, not caring that he was falling for it.

“Speaking hypothetically.... If he faked his death and that of his wife so that they could help build a resistance against a secret evil empire? A resistance he’s now ghosting for some reason.” She gave him an incredibly shit eating grin and shrugged. “Hypothetically, of course... anything else would be crazy.”

“WHAT?”

A crack of thunder woke their prisoner, and he looked frightened, Rogers must have seen it too.

“What's the matter, scared of a little lightning?” the patriotic enigma asked as Lewis bracketed the bleary Norse god with her arms and stared at his face. Which looked a little insane but gave him a great view of her ass.

“I'm not overly fond of what follows...” Loki grit out with a grimace.

A thump sounded on the roof. Of the speeding plane. At an altitude so high birds didn’t fly here.

Not good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Supes: slang shortening of super.  
> Sam-I-am: a character from the children's book "Green Eggs and Ham" and another way of teasing Coulson about the S.A.M. (Secret Agent Man) nickname.  
> Frisbee: a discus-style toy often made of plastic and thrown like Steve uses his shield at range.  
> Stars: In this case the stars on a General's epaulet that show his rank.  
> AWOL: Absent With Out Leave, missing.  
> VTOL: Vertical Take Off and Landing.  
> Ix-nay and Oward-hay: Pig Latin code translating to nix and Howard. Nix means no, or no talking.
> 
> Notes:  
> Body integrity identity disorder is a condition where an individual with an able body does not feel right with it, even experiencing dysphoria when asked to use a limb they feel should be missing, amputated or paralyzed. While this does not exactly match what I would expect to see from someone who underwent massive physical change so quickly, it is the closest dysphoric body identity disorder, most have to do with feeling flawed, not missing old flaws. Bruce's dissociation of the Hulk could be seen as a form of this, pushing unwanted parts of him into Hulk and then forcing a big split between the two states, even developing two personalities.
> 
> Darcy and Phil have a point. Icons and symbols play a big role in human minds, and the First Superhero, Captain America, Sentinel of Liberty, is a really potent icon to call on when things get crazy.
> 
> Steve and Bruce both downplay their powers, Bruce from shame and Steve from modesty and not liking some of the propaganda. One is healthy and good in small doses, the other generally leads to astounding anger management issues.
> 
> Water pressure under the ocean is a lot heavier than many people think. Those planes would not survive dipping under the photic zone, there are fish that swim at standard Sub float depths that react to open air like humans do to the vacuum of space, to give you some perspective.
> 
> You may notice some variation in when I use phonetic accent spelling, this is based on region and heaviness of accent. Kenneth Tigar, who played this man, had an accent in this scene, but it was quite light and I'm not sure I could do it justice. Additionally I named the character after the German University where Tigar spent a year. Also, because I think it's cool, Tigar has a BA and Ph.D. in German literature from Harvard and is so fluent he translates plays when not acting.
> 
> Flash patches were a WWII slang term in the UK's Armed Forces for the Tactical Recognition Flash, a unit designation patch. There's also an American term, but it's not as catchy, so I'm saying the Howlies picked up flash patch from Monty. In WWII there was no 107th infantry, so I'm stealing the white wing symbol from Cap's helmet (an approved location) and Bucky's sleeve as the Howlie patch. Wearing it on the left arm indicates active service, on the right it means veteran.
> 
> There are actually stories of Army medics on the march into Germany stopping to help with illness, injury and yeah, births, in areas depleted of doctors who were assigned to German troops or the camps to study the prisoners. As the son of a nurse, Steve probably would have made his men halt to assist whatever midwife was around, and maybe even gotten aid from another soldier, since they never said if the Howlies had a medic. Stefan is the Germanic form of Steven.
> 
> Pilates and calisthenics have very little in common aside from repetition focus. Calisthenics is all high-intensity in pace or difficulty, aerobic, uses no equipment, and is designed to build large motion strength and stamina (jumping jacks, push-ups, etc.). Pilates is low-intensity in pace, rarely is aerobic, often uses equipment, and focuses on core strength, flexibility, and balance. It also generally results in a slim muscular structure, more like Sam Wilson's lean form, than Steve's Dorito torso.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> "First one to make a Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog hammer joke gets tased in his own hammer, got it?”


	6. Assembled

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy handles diplomatic relations, negotiations and Nat being a menace.
> 
> Steve gets a good look at the Scientists Three and tells them the truth.
> 
> Thor reconsiders his actions and tries to see the things happening before him.

Darcy heard the thump and stood up, calling forward to Nat. “Open the door, we have company.”

Thor hopped down onto the ramp. “Lady Darcy, my Little Lightning Sister!” he cried, his smile very much like a happy puppy, and she tackle-hugged him, then pushed back and squinted at him.

“Okay, what the Helheim happened to ‘I give you my word, I will return for you’ you big jerk! I warned you, itty bitty pieces. Hurled into the sun. I was very clear. I used small words. Where did you get the idea ghosting Jane for a year was okay, dude?”

“The Bifrost was destroyed, in my conflict with my brother. Has Jane fared… well?”

“Decently. She's upset you left for so long without any word. You better make this right, or the next time I see you, I go straight to the death bits, brother or no brother.”

“I understand your terms. What has happened to my brother?”

“He took some of mine, and the Tesseract, so I tasered him. Hard.”

“Ah,” Thor said with a sympathetic wince. “Officially speaking, I came to take him to face justice for his crimes.”

“And as soon as he hands over my people, sure,” Darcy said with a shrug. “Oh, and take the stupid evil cube, too.”

“Seconded on the ‘put that thing back where it came from or so help me’ motion,” Steve said, raising a hand.

“Uh, does anyone want to tell me what’s going on?” Tony asked.

“Oh, yeah, introductions,” Darcy said, slapping her forehead. “Guys, this is Thor, he’s from Asgard, is my adopted older brother, and has a magic hammer. First one to make a Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog hammer joke gets tased in his own hammer, got it?” 

Steve closed his mouth in a pout and Tony looked at him like he’d seen a freaking unicorn. 

“Thor, the dude in the armor is Tony Stark, called Iron Man, a defender of Earth who likes to break physics for funsies, from what I hear. Take nothing he says that seriously, it’s how we dealt with… you know what, let’s skip that story. Next to him is Steve Rogers, I think I mentioned him?”

“He yet lives?”

“Everyone had that response, big guy,” Tony said. Thor ignored him.

“And the other, your Bucky Barnes?”

“Yes, what color are Loki’s eyes?” It was a clumsy diversion and she knew it.

“Green, as the grass serpents of Vanaheim. You dodge me, Sister.”

“For a good reason,” Nat said as she left the cockpit on auto. “He saved me. It… cost him. I’m Natasha.”

“Greetings Lady Natasha, Steven, Tony. It is good to meet my sister’s companions.”

“That’s great, Steve, you have perfect recall, what color were Loki’s eyes?”

“Blue. Bright, saturated blue, the same shade as the Tesseract. I thought it was weird but I didn’t want to project my issues on him.”

“We have a problem, then. Loki here has some freaky heterochromia going on, back and forth. Just a guess, but since Thor said green, I’m assuming the blue is foreign. Maybe the taser knocked it loose?”

“What should we then do?” Thor asked.

“Hit him again. Harder,” Natasha said.

“ _ Nat! _ Have you lost your mind, Pauk? This is not an Island and that is not Gilligan,” Darcy said, pointing at Loki. "Note the lack of coconuts."

“It’s in the manual, see?” She passed over a heavily annotated book.

“Nat… this says, and I’m quoting,  _ Agents are to avoid use of percussive maintenance in the field, and under NO circumstance _ , and they caps'd that ‘no’ and underlined it three times,  _ is the solution to a problem ‘use a bigger hammer’ no matter what your senior officer says.  _ End quote. Although, wasn’t a bigger hammer the way the alarm-clock trigger super-bomb issue in Epinal got solved?”

“The book always says not to do the fun way. I like to check them off. I haven’t tried a bigger hammer. But it doesn’t need to be a hammer, there are several amendments covering other blunt objects, bullet calibers, and amperage on shock weapons.”

“I don’t suppose there’s any chance I get a say?” Loki said, to a resounding shout of no, or nay, in the case of Thor. Darcy thought about it. She leaned in again, tracking his eyes. Blue, green, blue, green, green.

“You can talk, whether or not we agree is something else.”

“Be wary, sister, my brother’s words are oft his most potent weapons.”

“It was a long year you missed, Thor,” she sighed. “I grew up, and I think I can handle this. Talk, or I make you squawk, horse-fucker.”

“Oh Norns, you read those? For the last time, it was an alchemical workshop project!”

“Don’t care, I was just insulting you. Say your piece.”

“Fine.” Loki glared at her with green eyes. “Use the... taser again. Please.”

“Why?”

“Blue does not suit me.”

“I don’t care.”

“I will talk, tell you everything.”

Darcy smiled, and she knew it wasn’t a nice smile, it was a mean one, with too many teeth. “Oh, my dude, you already would have.”

_ “Without _ any attempt at tricking you. I swear upon my seidr.”

“That is a potent oath,” Thor told her. “He has never sworn such before, to my knowing.”

Darcy thought. About Clint and Eric, enslaved in their minds. About Bucky, his mind and soul slowly slipping from his grasp while she tried to dam up the holes like holding back the tide with her hands. She brought up the taser to inspect. “How do Asgardian bodies react to multiple high amp electric shocks? I might kill him.”

“I’m not Asgardian,” Loki said simply.

“I thought you two,” Tony gestured at Loki and Thor.

“He is adopted,” Thor admitted. “But also beloved. Neither of us knew until my banishment.”

“Ah, hence the mega-bot meltdown fight,” Darcy nodded.

“I owe you a beer for that by the way,” Steve said. “For helping Darcy when I couldn’t.”

“No, please, I do not care much for Midgardian ales, they do not fire my blood.”

“Oh, sorry. Same problem here.”

“Steve! Focus, please. I do not want to kill him. I need information first.”

“Just do it, woman,” Loki snapped and his eyes flashed blue again briefly. “I’d die before I live another sunrise with this thing in my mind.”

Darcy thought of the years of shocks, the fiddling with placement, the first time Bucky forgot his name. She put the prongs against the exact spot, silently apologized to Bucky, and pressed the button.

<^>

The flight back was mostly quiet after that, for which Steve was thankful. Stark had been being really annoying. He’d asked three questions of Thor, made one Shakespeare in the Park joke, and vaguely brought up Darcy’s slip about Howard earlier once. She’d looked at Natasha, who wiggled a hand and Darcy had told him she would come clean later, and then said something about a pest control company, sang the jingle, and generally acted like he hadn’t asked. After that, silence.

In the hangar, Thor scooped Loki’s limp form up after Darcy uncuffed him. With Thor quiet, and Steve and Tony out front being as distracting and flashy as possible, nobody questioned them until Fury met them in the large meeting area of the bridge with Jane and Banner.

"Lady Jane! I must apologize for my long absence, the Bifrost was lost, but I have returned.” He shifted and looked at the unconscious body he was holding. “I must tend to my brother. I hope you will forgive me for my tardiness and familial preoccupation."

"I understand Thor. I'd prefer it if this stay was a little longer, or you could give me a way to communicate, but I do understand."

“Thor? I send you for one Norse god, you bring me two?” Fury asked incredulously.

“Above and beyond, Director,” Darcy chirped. “He’ll be useful in interrogation; I’ll need a room.”

“We have a cage ready and waiting.”

“No, no cage, no tech, nothing distinctive. A bad cop-shop replica set with good soundproofing would be ideal. And kill the cameras and microphones. I’m a ghost, remember?”

“Of course,” Fury said awkwardly, as if remembering she didn't answer to him. He apparently handled awkwardness with introductions. “Stark, this is Doctor Banner and Ms. Foster.”

“Ahem.” Darcy raised her eyebrows.

“Doctor Foster. They’ve been working on tracking down the Tesseract.”

“It's good to meet you, Doctor Banner. Your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled,” Tony said. Bruce blinked, off balance, and Steve smothered a chuckle when Tony continued, “and I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster.”

“Thanks. I think.”

“Dr. Banner is only here to track the cube,” Fury said firmly. “I was hoping you might join him.” 

“Let's start with this stick of his,” Steve suggested, holding up the case it had been placed in. “It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a Hydra weapon.” 

“I don't know about that,” Fury hedged, “but it is powered by the cube, and  _ I'd _ like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys.” 

“Monkeys? I do not understand,” Thor said, still holding Loki in his arms.

“I do! I understood that reference!” Steve said, and okay, maybe he was a little over excited about knowing something about pop culture that didn’t come from Darcy. She rolled her eyes at him fondly. 

“I’ll fill you in later, Thor,” she promised.

“This way Lieu, Thor. Romanoff, I’d like you looking at footage we may have of Barton, see if you can confirm it. I’ll let our scientists settle themselves, and I trust Captain Rogers can handle himself?” Fury said, his single showing eye glaring at Steve.

“Is it a little weird he has a nickname for Lewis?” Banner asked as Fury walked off. “He doesn’t seem the type.”

“Yeah, but who knows? He’s a spy... no, he’s THE spy. His secrets have secrets,” Tony said blithely as Jane showed them to the lab. “By the way, how do you not destroy every set of pants you own? I’ve looked at the footage, it’s all very PG-13. I do worse at cocktail parties and I’m not tripling my body mass.”

Steve let Tony and Bruce’s banter fade back as he helped Doctor Foster get the spear from the case into a box that was mostly wires, hand welds, and duck tape.

“Did you build that?” Tony asked her.

“Yeah, Darcy helped. She doesn’t know what a quantum radiation spectrometer is, but she can find everything I need for at least half the price, and she can follow a blueprint. Best intern I ever hired and no, you may not have her. Mine.”

“This is pure genius, I mean, they called you crazy and that usually means someone is smarter than your average bear, but this…” Tony trailed off, admiring the machine. “This is into the realm of mad science. How are you not my top competitor?”

“I only build for my work.” She poked at the screen on one side of the box a bit, pulled up another panel of wavy lines on a big glass screen to one side, and made a hmm noise. “Fury was wrong, this has an internal power source and it’s not linked to the cube. It’s similar, but not the same. Class A blue giants and class G yellow stars both look like white dots on a picture of the night sky if you don’t care, but they are way different.”

“So what’s that mean?” Steve asked her.

“I don’t know, but he was way too confident about cube powered devices. Also, I got dings earlier.”

“Dings?” Tony asked. “And I was promised an explanation.”

“Are we clear?” Steve asked Doctor Foster. She grabbed a walkie talkie that was so modified it was more tape than walkie and turned a knob. Splitting pain hit his ringing ears, and then it was over and the other two men looked horrified and Jane looked embarrassed.

“Sorry, the zapper uses ultra-high frequency sound, turning it on and off will hurt as it passes the top of your limit. We’re clear now, no bugs. No promises on cameras though. Oh, and I cleared Bruce, he’s pretty much recruitment ready.”

“Recruitment for what?” Banner asked, but Steve ignored him.

“This does not leave this room, understand?” Stark made a zip and lock motion on his mouth and Steve tried to get it over with quickly. “Lieu isn’t a nickname, it’s a rank. L-I-E-U for Lieutenant, not L-E-W for Lewis.” 

“Wait, THE Lieu?” Tony asked as Bruce just mouthed the word like he was trying to understand it. “How? Ice, serum, a really fantastic plastic surgeon? She looks 25!”

“She is,” Jane said. “Her brain forms Einstein-Rosen bridges with other minds across time, swaps them out with hers. Steve is one, Bucky Barnes is the other. He’s not dead, he’s a prisoner of Hydra and he and Darcy have been working on an intertemporal resistance.”

“Jane has been helping Darcy as much as Darcy helps Jane,” Steve explained. “One of the reasons she is so good with Tess readings is she was looking for old Hydra weapons, in hopes that Darcy’s resistance could find a base or two and blow it. So she has a timey-wimey spacey-wacey detector that goes ding when there’s stuff.”

“You watch Doctor Who?” Tony sounded scandalized. Steve rolled his eyes, of course he watched it, it was good... and relatable, what with the time travel.

“Guys! On topic, please,” Jane sighed. “There was a ding, therefore, there was stuff. Go find it, Steve, you won’t be seen as strange wandering around, just… look amazed.”

“I can do that,” Steve agreed. 

“Tony, from what I can tell, aside from power jolts which I don’t think are something an Asgardian needs, the main purpose is wormhole creation, ripping space, but we hit a wall. I just don’t know how you’d do that with these readings.” Jane slid the screen at him.

“He'd have to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier,” Bruce said. “You can’t do that on Earth, you’d turn bedrock into magma.” 

“Unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect.”

“Well, if he could do that, he could achieve heavy ion fusion at any reactor on the planet. You really think he’d sit on that kind of discovery?” Jane demanded.

“Finally, someone who speaks English!” Tony said, delighted. Steve remained confused.

“Oh. Is that what just happened?” Everyone looked at him. “I’ll go find the stuff that made the detector  _ go ding.” _

<^>

Thor watched his siblings, both adopted, both changed. He had not seen it happen. In his reflections this past year, he’d thought often of the places he had gone astray, feeding the bitterness that now filled his brother. But he knew not where this cold and hard warrior had come from, who wore the form of his Little Lightning Sister. 

They danced at words, ever at odds, and however changed, Thor knew he must watch. This was one thing he could not blindly ignore, as he had much before. 

He must be a more worthy brother.

He must  _ see. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Helheim: Asgardian Hell, so this is like Asgard spanglish swearing.  
> Ghosting: disappearing from someones life, not responding to communication, acting like you are dead to them.  
> Funsies: on a whim, because it sounds fun.  
> Pauk: Russian for Spider.  
> Percussive maintenance: hitting the thing until it does what you want, see Jane tapping the monitor in Thor 2.  
> Norns: Goddesses of Fate for Asgardians, per comic cannon.  
> Seidr: magical power.  
> Fire my blood: Asgard Slang for getting buzzed or drunk.  
> Cop-shop: Slang for a police precinct.
> 
> Notes:  
> "Put that thing back where it came from or so help me..." is a line from Monsters Inc.
> 
> Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is a three part musical about the trials and tribulations of a wanna-be villain, and features a line where Captain Hammer (Gloriously portrayed by Nathan Fillion) tells Dr. Horrible he's going to take Doc's crush home and show her his hammer, then awkwardly clarifies that by hammer, he means his penis.
> 
> Gilligan's Island was a show about ship-wrecked tourists where sometimes major personality changes could be affected by a coconut falling on someone's head.
> 
> Amperage, the strength of an electric current, is what makes electric shock weapons so effective. Voltage is often confused with this as high voltages can also be deadly, but repeated use of a high amp weapon is also risky if you want your tasee to remain alive.
> 
> Darcy is referencing the part of the Eddas that detail Loki turning into a mare, getting pregnant by a stallion, and carrying Odin's eight legged horse Slepnir to term, and giving birth. With Marvel's decision that magic and science are one and the same on Asgard, I'm choosing to believe that was a very imaginative, possibly drunk, uneducated retelling of a genetic manipulation in-utero experiment.
> 
> Throughout both Thor movies, the only person who ever gets pissed when someone (and there are many of them) drops Jane's title is Darcy. Jane is too busy being a distraught genius, but Darcy is very clear on the DOCTOR Jane Foster point. Nick wouldn't ordinarily make this mistake, but he's testing Darcy, a relative unknown due to her 'shrouded in mystery' thing.
> 
> Class A blue giants and class G yellow stars both appear whitish to the naked eye, and even most home telescopes. However, they are way massively different, Class A's being very large and hot, and Class G being what our own sun is.
> 
> "Goes ding when there’s stuff." is a line from "Blink" an episode of Doctor Who. In the show it was a Timey-Wimey detector, but Tess mostly handles space, so Jane's detector is a Spacey-Wacey detector.
> 
> A hundred and twenty million Kelvin is hotter than the insides of stars that are so hot, their incandescence is out of human visual range, and can only be seen with UV filter scopes. It is a bizarre number that makes no sense to ever use. Also, a coulomb is a measure of one ampere (unit of strength of electric current) per second. A Coulomb barrier makes zero scientific sense in this context. I kept the babble because I liked it, but it's not real science guys.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> "If you aren’t an alcoholic, I’d recommend starting. You aren’t my first Colonel who liked yelling while I did the thing anyway."


	7. Helicarrier Attack Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy argues with a God, yells at Fury, and gives orders.
> 
> Steve helps fix an engine, reaffirms his dread of falling, and revises his opinion of Tony a little.
> 
> Bruce and Hulk experience a new way of being treated.

Darcy had expected some difficulty going lingo-a-lingo with the God of Lies, maybe even some deflection or stalling, even with Thor’s word that the oath was good. She hadn’t anticipated paranoia. Especially paranoia that so closely mirrored her own. 

He wasn’t even lying, she had sat with Bucky through too many interrogations where he acted as the ‘big stick’ to miss a lie. No, Loki was just telling her he couldn’t tell her. It was evasion, and it was driven by fear. She knew she’d be a handful on his side of the table, so his snark and disdain act was understandable if annoying. Sighing at his latest “I know not where,” she steepled her fingers.

“Okay, this is taking us nowhere. So let’s change the game. I’ll trade you one painful truth of mine, for one of equal value of yours. I’ll say mine, you determine what is closest in pain to it for you, and you share that. Even-steven, equal trade, no poking at you. I have to cough up the hard stuff to get anything of interest from you. Deal?”

“That seems… fair, and possibly entertaining. As much as anything here can be.”

“Alrighty, then. I fought in a war that began before I was born, died twice, and have been fighting that same enemy even up until last night. Seventy years of war. I’m 25.”

“Well that sounds wretched, no wonder you're so dogged with your pursuits.” Loki pursed his lips and flicked his eyes to the corners before speaking. “I was stolen as a babe from my birth race as a war prize and raised to hate my own kind, believe them monsters, less even than animals.”

“That sucks, internalized racism must be hard, wouldn't know.” Darcy sighed, preparing herself to offer something big enough to touch their current situation. “I am so afraid, all the time, of my enemies, that I won’t speak their name. I claim I don’t say it to disrespect them, and while that  _ was _ how it began, my refusal to respect, now it is fear. I call them by coded words... Calamari, Tess... I even call my allies by code. My fear dictates my speech in almost every aspect of life.”

“You do not seem a woman afraid of much. I would have called you fearless.”

“I’m not scared of much," she told him, shrugging. "I’m certainly not scared of  _ you, _ that’s why my fear of them is a painful truth. One you have not paid me back for.”

“I was judging the weight. My captor held me, broke me, turned me upon myself until I did his bidding as though it were my own. Call him the Mad Ti….” He began hyperventilating.

“Thor, rub his back, remind him where he is and that he is safe.” Darcy waited until Loki regained his composure, but noted he did not pull away from Thor as he had when he woke up. Bingo, weak spot. She supposed she should feel bad about doing this to him, but she didn’t. She didn’t feel much of anything. 

“So Mad Hatter broke you. Torture, I assume, side of brainwashing. Been there. Not fun times. Zero out of ten, would not recommend. So here’s my unpleasant truth." She stood to pace a bit, then braced her hands on the table.

"A man I love like life fell off a cliff so tall you couldn’t see the bottom, and I was with him, here,” she tapped a temple. “He was captured by enemies, his arm amputated and replaced with metal designed to kill him and everyone around him if he disobeyed. They took his mind from him, and I hid away the parts he wanted protected in my own mind. I have killed, I have lied, I have done whatever it took to keep him human and  _ him _ .” 

“That is…” Loki’s face seemed paler, a death-like cast creeping over his features.

“I’m not done,” Darcy said. She needed to get this out or she wouldn’t be able to say it. “They did this with chemicals and electric shocks, like what I used on you, only it wasn’t the right kind to allow him the mercy of unconsciousness. It was agony, which I took half of, to keep him sane and safe. They do this often, and every time I stand between them and him, deny them this man I love, try to keep him whole. And I. Am.  _ Failing. _ ” 

She saw the slight wince, the agonized look of someone who knew, and dispassionate for Loki, she twisted the knife a little more. “Every breath I waste speaking to you in riddles is one I could spend on him. If I don’t get a damn good reply, I’m not going to.”

“Lady Darcy,” Thor said warningly.

“Seidmadr Eric Selvig,” Loki blurted. His face held panic and honesty. “He has the Tesseract, and new knowledge of how it functions, and will open a portal for Chitauri warriors in the place most impressive and valuable as a symbol to this world, the home of a warm light for all mankind. They will invade and I am expected to lead. If I do not, I will die. Soon, in moments, the warrior Clint Barton will lead an attack on a flying fortress he will assume I am at, he said it was the safest place in the world to put someone very dangerous.”

Darcy stood and turned off her zapper, so she could safely turn on the communicator. “Nat, we have incoming; Hawk’s coming home to roost and will require percussive maintenance. Intercept him, he’ll be headed to where you’d think to put Loki.” As she reached the door, she turned back to the exhausted god of lies who had just been forcibly made painfully honest. She felt a pang of regret for doing that, squashed it, and spoke softly. “Thank you, for your cooperation. Thor, try not to kill Barton if he gets in here.”

She raced to the lab to reassure herself Jane and Steve were safe, only to burst in on everyone snarling at Fury.

“Is that a Squid gun?” she asked, pointing at the thing on the table. “Looks new.”

“It’s for protection from greater threats, like the one that almost killed  _ you _ in Puente Antiguo.” Fury glared with his one uncovered eye.

“Key word, _ almost _ . A lot of things have _ almost  _ killed me. I don’t go around with a massively overcompensating stick because of it. I have a Poli-Sci Master’s degree, and Nuclear Deterrents don’t actually deter much of anything. They usually just make you a really big target that everyone will feel okay about hitting because you were obviously aggressive. That sucker is a neon sign saying ‘come at me bro’ to the universe.”

“I was just saying that!” Tony said pointing at her.

“Good for you, we have a more pressing issue,” she said, turning away from both Fury and the squid gun.

“Wait just a goddamn minute,” Fury protested, grabbing her shoulder. She narrowly didn’t crush his hand, but it was a close thing.

“No. If you aren’t an alcoholic, I’d recommend starting. You aren’t my first Colonel who liked yelling while I did the thing anyway. Wonder where your little spider is?” She watched him turn to where he obviously thought Nat would be. “Barton is en-route to attack and retrieve Loki. Most likely with mercs. She’s on intercept, Thor is on Loki, I want you to go to where you were planning to put him. Don’t shoot to kill Barton automatically, electric shock has been shown effective at de-brainwashing, but use your best judgement.”

Fury glared but left, stalking out under a near visible thundercloud of anger.

“Did you just give Fury orders?” Tony asked, gaping at her.

“Yes, I am a horrible soldier. You are a much better hero than I am a soldier, so now it’s time to shine. Figure out what you’d hit on this thing to cripple it. Go defend it. Keep her in the air, Tony.” She saw him swallow hard before nodding and leaving. “All right, Steve, go find Coulson, he has the closest relationship to Barton besides Nat, and when we get Barton’s brain back, he’s going to need treatment and someone he knows.” Steve left at a jog and she looked at the two remaining scientists.

“I don’t want to be the Other Guy,” Banner told her.

“I will never order a transformation,” she promised him. “But the evidence suggests you have a certain amount of communication of feelings or concepts, because he only ever attacked viable targets, people who were threats, and he  _ actively shielded _ Doctor Ross. So look at the tiny ball of fuck-the-status-quo beside you, and focus on these words: Protect Jane. Make that a deep understanding that goes to your hind-brain, Jane is not to be hurt. And  _ if _ the big dude shows, try to remind him. Protect Jane. I am trusting you with her, trusting HIM with her. Do not disappoint me.” 

He looked like he was going to object when she raised a finger at him warningly. His posture shifted to a wary acceptance and she nodded.

“I’m hardly a princess in a tower, Darcy,” Jane sighed.

“No, you are my best friend. You have your training, your taser, your guts, and now Bruce. I’ve given you all I can. And now, I need to fight. I want my archer back.”

“Go. We got this.” Jane picked up the new Hydra gun and god, was it ridiculously huge on her tiny shoulder. Darcy nodded and moved out.

<^>

Steve found Coulson fairly quickly. It helped that anyone seeing him looking pointed in the right direction. After the situation was explained, he escorted Coulson to the medical bay and watched in surprise as the older man opened a locker and pulled out a purple pillow-case and a worn teddy-bear. He automatically moved to help get the case on a spare pillow.

“What is this for?” he asked.

“Trauma, of the non-physical kind. Barton’s going to feel horrible after this, he’ll need comfort items and familiar things. It’s not a weakness to need that.” Coulson really looked like he might fight Steve over this, and given the stuttering compliments and everyone knowing how much Captain America inspired him, that was saying something.

“No, it’s not weakness. It’s a real slick set-up, Phil, wish I’d had it after…. You’re a good man. I’m a little buzzy, I think I need to go hit some bad guys, where do you think Barton would deploy them?” The floor shook and an alert sounded.

“Near engine three, to prevent maintenance. Out the door, left to the end of the hall, right until the second left and then follow the maps on the walls.”

He reached the engine to find Stark blasting a plane out of the sky. Remembering his comm, he tapped it. “Iron Man? How can I help?”

“I need you to open the engine control panel on the far wall and tell me which relays are in overload position.” He shot another plane as he pushed some debris with his other hand. “Why won’t these bastards die?”

“Language, Tony.” He got to the panel, popped it open and looked at the mass of wires and lights. Maybe he had miscalculated. Another plane exploded in mid-air.

“Sorry, Grandpa. What's it look like in there?” 

“It seems to run on some sort of electricity!” Steve yelled, frustrated. He could program a DVR for Christ’s sake, he wasn’t bad at tech, but this was NOT a DVR.

“...well,” Stark said only half-grudgingly, “you're not wrong.”

Steve began tracing the lines and trying to remember fixing Mrs. Bahrenburg’s fuse box. “The relays are intact, I think. But it’s not exactly a Jeep, I don’t think we can push-start it.”

“Yeah, wait, no! You’re totally wrong, this is great. I’ll go in and give it a push.”

“That thing gets up to speed and you’ll get shredded!” Tony replied with more science babble and Steve popped. “Speak English! I don’t speak Science!”

“See the red lever? It will slow the rotors enough for me to get out, stand by it and wait for my word.”

Steve thought maybe Tony was a little more insane than he’d thought. Howard had never been the guy to make the sacrifice play, let another guy crawl over him, which was what his son was preparing to do. Still, he went to stand by the lever, only to see goons in black toss a grenade at Tony’s back. He blocked the toss, but it put him on the wrong side of the gap, fighting hand to hand with armored gunmen. He’d even forgotten his shield. Debris made a nice substitute throwing weapon, and a not-entirely-dearly departed gunman had thankfully left a rifle not too far away.

It was going great until Steve lost his footing too close to the wrecked and open end of the hall.

“Cap, hit the lever.” Tony’s voice was so sure, so confident that Steve could do this, it almost hurt him to admit he was hanging by his fingers to metal that could all too easily give way. Was this how Bucky and Darcy felt?

“I need a minute here,” Steve got out, higher than his voice normally went, taut with fear and memory.

“Lever…” Tony called, panic in his voice. “Now!”

Steve wrenched his arm out and snagged the lever near its hinge and let his body’s weight pull it down. When the shooter came out of the hallway, he thought he knew how Darcy and Bucky felt, wanting to live and knowing he wouldn’t, his grip slipping from the lever and his body falling back, only to be slammed into the floor as Iron Man shot past him to take out the attacker.

“Let’s not do that again,” Steve said, hauling himself to shaky feet. "I hate heights."

“Yes, being two seconds from becoming a smoothie was, I’ll admit, not my favorite part of today,” Tony said, not lifting his mask yet.

“Sorry, Tony, I slipped, and….” Tony stopped him with an armored hand on his shoulder.

“Jarvis is playing me the security footage, I know what happened.”

“It’s my fault,” Steve said and he wasn’t sure if he was talking about Tony or Bucky.

“Fuck that noise, Rogers, you saved my life. Let’s go.”

"Language, please."

<^>

Bruce wasn’t sure what the stern enigma of a woman that Darcy Lewis was meant, trusting the Other Guy with Jane, until a blast took out the floor beneath them and they dropped into a darkened room.

“Doctor Banner!” He could hear her calling out, not in hushed fearful tones, in pain, loud, louder in his ears as he fought the change. “Doctor Banner, I need help.”

Banner was gone.

Hulk looked at the tiny woman. Jane. She was talking at him, but she was squeaky, and a hard heavy thing was on her leg. Maybe she wouldn’t be squeaky without the hard heavy thing. He moved it and little men went running. Stupid men, they should help tiny Jane. Hulk had big smash things hands, not little fix-things hands.

“Hulk?”

“Ugh, wha?”

“The big gun by your foot... slide it to me?”

“Shoot Hulk.”

“No, don’t be silly. Shoot people who shoot Hulk. Hulk takes the guns from those bad people, we stay safe.”

“Oh.” That made sense. Carefully he slid the bigger gun to her with one finger and sat down.

“Hulk?” Why would tiny Jane not be quiet? “Will you be my friend? It’s just, Darcy is my friend, but Darcy is fighting and I’m scared and I feel alone and I need a friend, and you’re here, and I’ll stop talking now. Sorry.”

Hulk understood alone. It was a not-good feeling to him, and to puny Banner, it was worse, because he was so small and the world was so big. The tiny woman was even smaller. She must feel very not-good.

“Hulk here. Hulk friend. No alone.”

“Thanks,” she said and leaned her head on his arm. 

One bad man tried to shoot them, but tiny Jane’s big gun got him, and Hulk turned the bad gun into a ball to roll on the floor with Jane. It was fun. A new not-smashing fun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> lingo a lingo: a bad play on the Spanish mano a mano (hand to hand) using lingo (slang for talking) instead.  
> Even-steven: fair, equal.  
> Slick: cool, awesome.  
> Buzzy: hyper or full of adrenaline, easiest to work off with exercise.  
> Push start: pushing a car to help the stalled engine start working.  
> Fuck that noise: nonsense, that's false.
> 
> Notes:  
> Internalized racism is when someone learns (as all racism is a learned behavior) to hate their race, even trying to destroy the characteristics that tend to come with that race, and putting down others of their race.
> 
> Thor providing comfort and support is important to Loki being capable of further talking. Honestly, Darcy is pushing way too hard right now, but she is also in pain and has a broken give-a-damn.
> 
> "Keep her in the air" comes from Serenity, the movie extension of Firefly. The full line is "Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down." Darcy is validating the #TonyStarkHasAHeart concept, putting a good amount of faith in him.
> 
> Trauma can be treated with cuddly toys, familiar items like pillowcases, and the presence of a safe and trusted person, which is what Phil is preparing. It's not a cure, but it will help him get to functional faster. Many WWII vets are dead now because the time in which they went to war was very disapproving of shellshock that lasted longer than a two week leave or a stay in medical. Phil knows that, he does not know Steve had access to PTSD resources in the war.
> 
> Hulk is remarkably kind for someone so often characterized by rage. I'm drawing on more than MCU for my rendition of Hulk, because I really don't think mindless rage beast is as fun as tormented young child (assuming his birth happened with the accident in 2003, he's 9 here, although with how little Bruce lets him out, he's more like 6 or 7) who wants the world to stop trying to hurt him.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “Did you just put 34 spent casings in your backpack?”  
> “Bubbie Lewis taught me to clean up after myself, but the 34 guys were too big to go in the bag, no matter how good I am at origami."


	8. Helicarrier Attack Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy cleans up in the aftermath of the attack on the helicarrier, and helps rescue Jane.
> 
> Steve helps Darcy with Jane, tells Tony how he matters, and talks to Hulk.
> 
> Natasha has trouble with words, but she knows Clint and Phil will help her, and she decides to pay off a debt.

Darcy jump-fell from an upper level onto the bridge. It would have been the perfect place to attack from and she made sure her landing was loud, to draw attention to this gap in security. She had two empty magazines and 34 casings in her belt pockets, smelled strongly of cordite, and she was pretty sure she had blood in her hair, so she decided to crack a joke to convince the woman commanding the bridge she wasn’t a threat.

“Clean up, Aisle 7,” she told the wide-eyed Assistant Director. “I made a mess, but to be fair, they started it.”

“I need a containment crew to upper deck four,” said the woman into a comm.

“No, um, they are dead, like super dead, very much not alive,” Darcy clarified as she dumped her spent casings in her brightly colored galaxy print backpack. She counted as they clinked together to make sure she had gotten all of them. Then she turned to the woman who she’d never caught the name of.

“Did you just put 34 spent casings in your backpack?” The question could have sounded accusatory, but instead it sounded impressed.

“Bubbie Lewis taught me to clean up after myself, but the 34 guys were too big to go in the bag, no matter how good I am at origami. I’ll help with the blood stains, I keep WD-40 and a liter of coke in here. By the way, what’s your name?”

“Maria Hill. How is an intern such a good shot?”

“I wasn’t always an intern,” Darcy said, undoing her fighting up-do. “I don’t suppose you got showers on this thing, I think I just found, yeah, that’s skin. I hate this part, where’s biohazard?”

“I’ll take you,” Hill offered. “It’s next to medical and I hit my head.”

Darcy scrubbed the bad guy bits and blobs off herself as quickly as she could, dried, re-dressed in her sweat and blood stained battle suit, and finger combed her hair out and braided it quickly.

She met AD Hill in the hall where she noted the lack of extra blood and the gauze square.

“Barton in medical? I may have raided his stash… I don’t normally carry a gun but their armor was too thick for a taser.”

“Containment two, under watch of Romanov and Coulson.” The AD jerked a thumb and Darcy nodded before trotting off to find her archer.

“Hey, Hawk-ass, how’s the head,” she said into the room with a woozy Clint, a guilty looking Nat and a worried Coulson.

“Been better. How many…?”

“No,” responded Nat and Darcy together. They shared a look. Nat took the conversation.

“Don’t do that, don’t blame yourself. You were not in control.”

“But I was, sort of.”

“I know,” Darcy said. “I knew when I asked Fury about you. You know how? He was telling me you tried to kill him. I told him you didn’t. I know you, you are very Yoda on Dagobah about killing, do or do not.”

“There is no try,” he finished with a huff of almost laughter. “Yeah, it was sloppy, almost like…”

“Like he didn’t want you controlled?” Nat guessed.

“Yeah,” Clint said with a shaky nod. “Which is weird from a world conquering megalomaniac.”

“Not if he doesn’t want to actually conquer the world, Clint,” Darcy pointed out. “Short version, I tased the controls out of his brain and he is just as pissed about this crap as you. Oh, and Thor is back and watching them is like watching a golden retriever and a Siamese cat.”

“He wasn’t…?”

“The one pulling the strings? No, middle manager only, which I think is a contributing factor to his pissy attitude issues.”

“That would explain his dumb-ass plan to get caught. Who should I be mad at?”

“He can’t tell us. Literally, I almost got him there and he broke down. It was ugly. I’ve code named the threat Mad Hatter, since Mad was the only syllable he got out before going into a really bad episode. You gonna be okay? I need to check on Jane.”

“Yeah, you tend to your people, Lewis, I got my own.”

Darcy looked at Clint’s ragged bear under an arm, Natasha sitting on the end of the bed with his bare feet in her lap and Coulson in a chair by the Emergency Alert button. He was going to be okay.

She got to the lab and let out a long and creative stream of dirty language when she saw the giant hole in the floor.

<^>

Steve and Tony got back to the lab to find Darcy swearing harshly at the wreckage of the floor.

“Darcy, Angel, are Jane and Banner… did they….”

“I don’t know.” He could see the tense line of her jaw, the wet hair braided back sloppily, and he knew she’d been in battle. Fighting while her friend was somewhere that was supposed to be safe. He pulled her into his arms and let her stiff body lean on him.

“I hate to interrupt the Lifetime Original Movie moment here, but I have heat signatures, two decks down, one is way too hot to be a normal human,” Tony said from under the visor. “The other looks injured.”

“Jane,” Darcy breathed. “I have to get down there.” She was moving for the hole when Steve stopped her.

“Darcy, you know I’m more than aware of your skill and strength, but I should go secure it while you get a medic. Remember the videos? Hulk reacts to fear stimuli, and as much as I love you, you kind of scare  _ me _ right now. You just got out of battle, you still smell like cordite, and your clothes are covered in blood that I’m reasonably sure isn’t yours. I only marginally stink of hand to hand and one rifle I had to use and there’s no blood on me aside from a little scraping... besides, you’re better at bossing than I am. Go get the medics. I’ll get Jane and Hulk.”

“Yeah,” Darcy blew out a breath. “You’re right, I’ll go get medical to get Jane. Try to get Hulk a little less... Hulky by the time they get there, I don’t want them pissing themselves.”

As she left, Tony looked at him.

“So she can swear enough to make a sailor blush and I can’t say ‘bastards’? Double standards much, Rogers?”

“I’m trying to kick the swearing habit, Darcy embraced it. It’s a good release for her, and limits the number of times I have to talk her off a metaphorical window ledge. But for me, I hate that I still swear like I’m still in the 107th, and it helps if others keep it clean. I’m sorry about the chiding, I just, I’m working on it and I need a role model, okay?”

“Captain America thinks of me as his role model? We’re doomed.” Steve laughed, and then realized Tony was serious.

“Tony, in the dark hours, when things were bad, we told stories. Some were fiction, and we knew it, some were true and we knew it, and some we wanted to be real and didn’t think they were. Iron Man was a hero long before you ever stepped foot in Afghanistan, just... to a  _ select group. _ You’ve been  _ my _ hero for, experientially, five years. That’s why I’d really like it if you didn’t swear, because I need a hero, alright?”

“ _ I _ was  _ your _ hero?”

“Well, if we discount Zoe Washburn and Buffy Summers, on the basis of them being fictional, yes. Now, where are we aiming, I want to jump on the opposite side so they don’t spook. Jane is a hair trigger these days.”

“I’ll fly you down.”

They touched down gently opposite Hulk and Jane rolling a metal ball back and forth to each other while Jane sang about periodic elements. Neither one seemed to notice the two heroes, for which Steve was sort of grateful, he needed to get a harness for buddy flight, Iron Man holding his waist had been embarrassing.

“Ahem, Doctor Foster?”

“Oh Steve!” Her face lit up. “Did you bring pain pills? My leg really hurts.”

“I didn’t, sorry, but Darcy is marshaling the medics to get down here and help you. In the meantime, if you want I can check for a break?”

“Yes please, oh, wait.” She turned to the giant green man next to her. “He’s here to help me. A friend. Don’t smash.”

“Friend?” Hulk looked at Steve like Steve had taken his favorite toy. Suddenly Steve felt like an absolute jerk, the worst, a bully. His words caught in his throat.

“Yes,” Tony answered for him. “Steve is your friend, I am your friend, we’re all friends of Jane and want to help her. You can have more than one friend.”

“Oh. Help tiny Jane.”

“Oi!”

“Be fair, Jane, comparatively, you are kinda tiny next to him,” Steve told her as he knelt by her leg. “I need to cut the jeans, there’s blood and I don’t want to risk moving anything if the bone broke the skin.”

“Scissors, in the black box with purple duct tape, that corner,” Jane pointed. Tony handed them to Steve and he cut away the lower leg of the jeans to look at the cut. He didn’t see bone, but there was an impact gouge in her skin. Gently he felt along the sides of her leg, working up until she hissed and Hulk rumbled.

“Easy on, now. You’ve got bruising at the best, I need to do one or two more squeezes to make sure nothing is shifting.”

“Okay, but I reserve the right to whine like a baby.”

“So noted. Three, two,” he pushed before one and Jane shrieked and went limp.

“NO! Bad, hurt tiny Jane, no!” Hulk bellowed.

“Stop!” Steve commanded, and it bought him one second of confusion to lever. “We’re in a small space, I can cause a lot of accidents fighting in a small space, it’s not safe. Hit me later.” Hulk backed down as Steve edged away from Jane.

“So, break?” Tony asked as if nothing had happened.

“Fracture on the tibia, she’ll need a cast, but it’s not major, it just hurts like a son of a,” Steve cut off quickly and slapped a hand on his mouth. “Sorry,” he said under the hand.

“God, you are adorable,” Darcy commented from the doorway where the burnt remains of a man lay. “Nice shot, Jane. I see we made a new friend.” She eyed Hulk, still crouched over Jane. “You gonna let the nice people who make pain stop in to help Jane?”

“Not hurt tiny Jane,” he said stubbornly.

“If they do, I will personally throw them off the highest place I can find.”

“He hurt tiny Jane,” Hulk said, pointing at Steve.

“Really? Dude, not cool!”

“I was checking her fracture, and you know that hurts! I already said he could hit me later. Please don’t, you know our history with heights.” He shuddered, the train, the plane, the helicarrier hallway that dropped into nothing, he hated it all. Heights were where bad scary things that hurt happened.

“Okay, no tossing you out a window, this time. But only because you were trying to help. I’m sure Hulk understands trying to help and getting in trouble.” The big man nodded slowly.

“Accidents. Make smash, people yell, puny Banner feel bad about Hulk, nobody want Hulk to stay. Hulk not have friends because of accident smash.”

“Not true,” Steve insisted, and Hulk looked at him. “Doctor Ross is your friend. You saved her and it’s hard not to want to be friends with someone who saves you. I should know,” he added smiling at Darcy. “And Jane likes you, and I want to be your friend, and Tony said he wanted to be your friend. Tony really likes it when you smash, he said so, right, Tony?”

Tony pulled up a glowing hologram of himself on his palm. “I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster," said the little hologram. “See? I said that, and kept it. I think you’re cool.”

Hulk nodded and pushed back into a corner, further denting the metal. Darcy waved the medical team in, and while they seemed nervous, they remained professional, even when Hulk growled after a whimper from Jane.

<^>

Natasha was quiet. She almost always was, but this felt… different. Like she should say something and didn’t know how. What do you tell the man you maybe love after he had his mind stolen? Been there? Too bad? That stinks?

She settled on “Lewis is the Lieu.”

“WHAT?” Clint yelped. Coulson nodded, but she saw the question on his face.

“The Lieu recruited me early, when I was a child. She helped me get away, taught me how to blend in.”

“You said that was a guy called Zima,” Clint said.

“It was. She and he, they could both be there in his head, I just didn’t know. She protected him... the Last.” 

Both men drew in a breath, they knew what she was saying and puzzle pieces began to fill in. Natasha watched her little broken family put all seventy years of the Lieu together from 45 words. It was what she liked about them, they could do that, so she didn’t have to find the words alone. And they accepted who and what she was. And just like Darcy Lewis had saved her, Darcy had saved these men, her family, from the enemy Mad Hatter. Natasha owed a debt. And she was very good at balancing the scales.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Jump-fall: a controlled way of dropping a certain height, taught in Parkour classes, safest on the knees.  
> Cordite: a propellant used in bullets, it smells very distinct and only really gets on clothes and body when someone is close to a firing gun, like pull the trigger close.  
> Swear enough to make a sailor blush: to swear very colorfully and at length.  
> Hair trigger: quick to shoot or react.
> 
> Notes:  
> The magazine is the boxy thing the clip of bullets goes into, the casing is the part that drops out of the gun after the actual bullet leaves the gun.
> 
> "Clean up, Aisle 7" is a bad joke about spills in grocery stores. The humor is morbid, but this is what you get when you serve in combat zones, it's morbid humor or going a little crazy. Or both, both is always an option.
> 
> WD-40 is a machine lubricant and surprisingly good blood stain remover. Coke or Pepsi, the sodas, are often carried by highway patrol to clean blood stains off places where roadkill or accidents were, to minimize the number of people who see blood on the roads. The carbonation makes an acid that dissolves the blood.
> 
> Biohazard showers are for removal of biological agents that have gotten on skin, to minimize risk of infection. If Darcy got hit by blow-back enough that a bit of skin wound up in her hair, she needs to scrub down with disinfectant.
> 
> "Do or do not, there is no try," is a famous line from Star Wars, given to Luke Skywalker by Yoda during his training in the Dagobah system.
> 
> Lifetime Original Movies are known for having super sad plots that mostly end happy-ish with some kind of moral, but the first three quarters are normally just angst and death.
> 
> Swearing can in fact reduce pain and stress. Scientists do not know why yet, but for some people, cursing is a useful coping tool. For others, it induces a feeling of shame, which is never good for people recovering from prolonged stress.
> 
> Steve learned about Iron Man in the early spring of 41, and went into the Ice in the early spring of 45, but he's had about a year's worth of Darcy jabbing him for memories and giving him her own, so it's a total of five. Meanwhile, Tony has only been Iron Man since May 2008, a little under four years.
> 
> Zoe Washburn was a character on the show Firefly, who was an incredibly tough and kickass woman. Buffy Summers is the title character of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
> 
> There are numerous songs about the periodic table of elements, you can find them on youtube and pick which one you like best for this scene.
> 
> It can be hard for small kids to accept that your friend having another friend doesn't mean they've been taken from you, especially if friendship is a hard thing for said kid to get. Hulk is having a very emotionally charged moment with this friends in the plural idea.
> 
> Impact gouges are like blunt cuts, the corner of something ran into the leg hard enough to break skin.
> 
> Steve actually checks this injury correctly, but fractures do indeed hurt like holy hell and shrieking is a normal response.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> "We got hostiles incoming, so either square the fucking hell up or get out of the goddamn way of people who are willing to kick the sliding shiny shit outta these alien bastards.”


	9. Battle of New York

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy lays out the plan, calls in back-up, and suits up to fight.
> 
> Steve handles ground warfare, meeting old friends and figuring out he's being hit on.
> 
> Bucky helps Darcy in any way he can.

After settling everyone in the make-shift meeting room they made of the Hangar (Hulk asked not to shift into Banner and nobody had the heart to say no) Darcy looked at her troops.

“Okay, Loki, what’s the play? You said the portal would open ‘in the place most impressive and valuable as a symbol to this world, the home of a warm light for all mankind’ which while pretty sweet linguistics, does not tell me much.”

“I have to be ‘sweet’ as you say, with my words as whilst All-Speak can work many wonders of translation betwixt languages with naught in common, there will always be gaps through which meaning falls.”

“Ugh, we have an incoming alien army and our only source is citing translation difficulty!”

“Darcy, sit down, slow down, and breathe,” Steve told her. She shot him a dirty look but did as he said anyway. It helped. “Do you know what it looks like, Loki?”

“Yes, Seidmadr Selvig showed me one of those slippery book things with a printed painting of the place.”

“Clint?” Darcy asked hopefully.

“Sorry, a lot of it is fuzzy and trippy, although that could be the concussion.”

“I SAID I was sorry!” Nat hissed at him, a faint blush revealing her actual embarrassment at how she handled it.

“Children, please, settle down,” Darcy sighed. Who would have thought highly trained spies and killers could be such pre-teens?

“This is it, Lady Darcy,” Loki said, sliding her Steve’s notepad. “I used a little seidr to make it more accurate. Sorry.”

“Dude, you and Steve need to get into the art business or something, this is good, and with such a quick turnover, there is some ka-ching to be had." She registered the actual structure in the intricate sketch. "Aw, shit. Tony?”

“Yeah?”

“You have some kind of reactor powering the new Stark Tower with reasonably priced, clean, sustainable energy as a proof of concept, don’t you?”

“Yes, why?” 

“A warm light for all mankind.” She flipped the book so he could see. “Eric’s going to open this in Manhattan. I like Manhattan, my hotel and all my stuff is in Manhattan! Okay, not all of it, but this is bad. Civilian casualties alone... we need to get ahead of this.”

“I regret I cannot join you,” Loki told her graciously, with a small tilt of his head. “Once battle is joined, he, the  _ Mad Hatter  _ as you have named him, will be watching, or have his minions watching, and if I appear to be anything but the monster of the tale….”

“He’ll destroy everything you ever loved and drive you so crazy you beg him for the mercy of death, I know. Remember, _ I know _ .” Darcy sighed. “Okay, Loki gets to be our inside man, he ‘leads’ the attack. You can play up the full tilt diva, throw a fit and have fun, but please don’t be too effective. Is the portal a vertical ‘drop from the sky like alien rain’ thing, like the Bifrost was, or a horizontal ‘doorway troops march through’ thing?”

“Above,” Loki answered with a grateful nod. “Your aerial defenses are weakest and the traffic of humans and machines would make a ground attack… problematic.”

“Okay, our flyers will have to go high, stop them before they hit civilians. Tony, Thor, keep in contact with each other and coordinate your flight patterns. Steve, rally the people, you’re good at it and Stuttgart went viral already. This is like, one of the most aggressive cities in the country, get them to fight back if they can and help evacuate if they can’t. Clint, we’ll need eyes, pick a good spot and tell us where to go. Try not to get injured again, we can’t risk you bleeding into your skull. Natasha, kill the ones that make it to the ground. Hulk, if it’s alive, aggressive, and not human, you can smash away and nobody will yell at you. Sound good?”

“Darcy, you left yourself out,” Steve said.

“Selvig needs to be saved. I have a proven way of doing it.”

“That could kill him!”

“I can do it,” Natasha offered, breaking up the forming argument between them. “I also broke the controls.”

“I can’t ask you to do that twice, Pauk,” Darcy said. She'd seen the guilt.

“You aren’t. I’m telling you I’ll do that. I think,” the spy paused. “I think it’s time for HERO to get involved.”

“I can’t break their covers.”

“Sorry, but what Hero?” Steve asked. Darcy checked the zapper she’d turned on before he came in, made sure it was jamming, then answered.

“It’s the Heritage Espionage and Resistance Organization. My people.”

“There are so many, you could easily leave the rest of the Heracles Burn team out and still field a large number. Who could tell the difference between them and the civilians?” Clint pointed out.

Darcy thought and nodded. She pulled out her phone and pressed a specially coded app Red gave her. It alerted all operatives who had the “available” option turned on with a short message, 70 characters, half a tweet. It was all she needed.

**NYC incoming alien attack, fight capable agents with no cover, assist.**

“It’s done.” She looked at her team, at the Avengers Initiative. “Loki, you feel like stealing that quinjet? Or are you more comfortable with another mode of transport?”

“I believe I can  _ fly _ it, landing… might pose certain difficulties.”

“You’re trying to take over the pathetic mud ball, remember? Any crash you can walk away from is a landing.”

“Oh well, when you put it like that, I suppose I shall see your wretched Avengers in glorious battle,” Loki said with a grin. She knew that grin, she’d probably had the same look whenever she smuggled a kid out of Russia. The idea of the lie he was about to tell, the prank he would pull on a deserving target, was a potent antidepressant. “Make peace with whatever gods you choose, farewell.”

“That guy is a few cards short of a full deck,” Tony noted as the quinjet took off.

“Have a care how you speak! Loki may have passed beyond the borders of reason, but he is of Asgard and he is my brother!” Thor boomed.

“Thor, buddy, I’m your sister and I readily admit that my brain is a bag full of cats,” Darcy told him. “I recognize that brand of crazy when I see it. I look in a mirror too often not to. Face it big guy, your sibs from different cribs are banana balls, but that doesn’t make us not your family.”

“I… accept your words, but do not yet have the wisdom I need to understand them.”

“Norns willing, you never will,” Darcy said, laying a hand on his arm. “We all know our roles?”

<^>

Steve watched Darcy requisition a jet from Phil, pointedly ignoring Fury’s attempts to goad the team or break her away from them. When the Director took her weapons to keep her on the Carrier, she laughed. It was a short bark that held no amusement, but it was a laugh. Beside them in the jet, Darcy rummaged in her swirling printed bag for something, and came out with mid-length black leather gloves studded with heavy copper wiring and plates.

“Kinetic powered shock gloves. Jane made them.”

“I thought Foster only built for her work,” Tony half said and half asked.

“She does. I’m a part of her work and there are people who want me dead. So, helping me with keeping my brain alive is a part of her work.”

“Are you sure you want to be on the field for this, Angel?” Steve asked. “There are going to be cameras. You work best in shadows where nobody sees you.”

“They don’t have to know who I am. Facial recognition will bring back a normal, if somewhat odd, young woman. Analysis of my fight patterns will not connect with any mention or description of the Lieu, because I changed a lot of my patterns in Russia. No one has ever connected me without my trust and permission before.” She took his hand and looked him in the eyes. “I’ve been scared of a lot of things in my life Steve, but standing up to fight has never been one of them.”

Steve nodded, he knew that much was true.

On the ground, after dropping off the flyers and Clint, with Natasha taking the jet to Stark tower, Steve started to doubt the sanity of the plan. The beam of light opening the portal scared him, his heartbeat loud in his own ears as he forced himself calm, walking into a bar across the street. There was Cap memorabilia on the walls and he forced down a hysterical giggle when he saw the same dumb poster from his Europe Tour. Every man and woman there had the bearing of a soldier.

“So, we’re about to be invaded by aliens, we’re hilariously outgunned, and my best gal is in the coffee place next door helping evacuate. You don’t look like runners. Who wants to fight?”

“Son,” said a leathery old man, his balding head glinting in the light as he stood and every person in the place focused on him like they were waiting for a signal. “You done fucked up, wearing that. You see, I knew Cap, and you don’t get to mock him like this.”

Steve used his artistic eye to peel away seventy years of wear and tear.

“Holy cow... HAPPY SAM!?!” Steve pulled off the cowl to give his friend a better look at the grin breaking across his features. “You made it! I was trying to track down the records, almost everyone is listed dead or missing even if they aren’t. Geez louise, it is  _ good _ to see a friend. Oh, and I did track down Morita, he’s fine. Technically, my thing you aren’t cleared for was keeping an eye on him, so it’s less tracking down and more checking up on. Oh, you wanna meet her? She was always sort of salty that she didn’t get to meet our reserve troops.”

“I don’t believe you,” Happy Sam said stiffly. “And all the plastic surgery in the world ain’t gonna make me.”

“When I met you, Dugan called the Top Brass idiots who would put an incompetent white man in charge of the Nisei. You hate peanuts but you love the cracking sound of the shells because it made your old CO’s eye twitch. Morita’s thing about the fucking Fresno Cardinals, how do I know any of this? That  _ stupid _ perfect recall.”

Sam squinted, but his jaw was set mulishly.

“You have type O blood,” Steve said. “But when Dum-Dum needed an emergency transfusion, the doctor wouldn't let you donate, so Bucky decked him and we bribed the nurse to do it with all our cigarettes, because only Dugan got nicotine fits, and none of the rest of us actually smoked that much. Do I need to continue, Sawyer?” 

“I’ve talked my fair share about the war, we all did. As I told the last bastard to put that outfit on, reading a biography don’t make you my friend and I’d advise you not to push it when you’re wearing a dead man’s face.”

“Wuh de ma,” Steve muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. “How did I forget how  _ stubborn _ you are? Look Sawyer, whether you believe me or not, the woman who threatened to hobble a man behind enemy lines for disrespecting  _ your _ men is right next door doing the same damn thing as me… stepping up because someone has to. We got hostiles incoming, so either square the fucking hell up or get out of the goddamn way of people who are willing to kick the sliding shiny shit outta these alien bastards.”

“Okay, good enough for me,” Happy Sam said with a grin. “Nobody would have believed you swore like that. Load up boys and girls, it’s the day of miracles, and we got spacemen to shoot.” The bar burst into action and Steve moved on. 

Soon he had to stop his recruitment and evacuation efforts to fight, leading to a snarky exchange with a police officer who didn’t want to take commands, until Steve backhanded a Chitauri directly at Darcy, who flipped the thing in a way that broke its spine while also lighting it up with electric charge that built when she moved her hands.

After that, the battle broke into moments, little spots of clarity when even his perfect recall blurred together attack after attack.

Steve’s heart stopped for a minute when Darcy screamed into the comms, only to start again when she started swearing about Thor’s driving being worse than Jane’s.

He freed a bank using the backlash of a grenade tossed onto his shield and ushered the people out and down into the subways. A waitress tried to cling to him and he finally noticed she was flirting with him, which was sort of funny, in the situation.

“Sorry miss, I’m rationed like you would not believe.”

“Rationed?”

“Saving all my sugar? Taken, with someone, in a relationship. How do you say it now?”

“Oh, lucky lady, then.” She pouted, probably in a way that was supposed to be appealing but Steve didn’t see it. He preferred his gal made of sterner stuff.

“I certainly think so,” Darcy told her from behind him, as if reading his mind. “Cap, we got barricades down on 39th and Eighth. The locals are fighting it, but not even the Kitchen can hold them for long.”

“Hawkeye, where’s Hulk?”

“Not too far, Cap. Get Lieu there and you’re golden.”

“Got it, go, you know what to do.”

“Better believe it, punk,” Darcy winked at him and he felt a pang of loss that Bucky wasn’t beside them, but that was dispelled by an energy blast ripping up the street from above.

“Go,” he told the two women, and moved to throw his shield into the underside of the chariot thing.

<^>

He knew she didn’t mean to do it, but when the space-eel thing came crashing at her Darcy reached for her boys, and yanked back from Steve the moment she saw his own danger and hers missed by an inch. But she kept the link with Bucky. Mostly because Bucky wouldn’t let go.

He watched her fight, he helped her aim the alien rifles at airborne moving targets, the calculations in his mind resulting in a steady and consistent stream of shots that took down flyers.

He was with her when Steve twigged to the notion the blonde dish was flirting, and with her when they reasserted their claim.

He was with her when Iron Man carried a nuke into space.

He was with her in the hellish eternity of five-point-seven-five seconds between Natka closing off the portal’s power and Stark’s kid falling from the sky like a rag-doll. He didn’t know if the images of an icy cliff, a train, and a fall were hers or his.

He was there when she slapped Tony for asking if she’d kissed him.

And then he was drawn back, away from Darcy, and the sky, back into his tube. At least she was safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Betwixt: between.  
> Naught: nothing.  
> Ka-ching: an onomatopoeia for the sound of money entering a register, slang for cash.  
> Sibs from different cribs: adopted siblings.  
> Best gal: girlfriend.  
> Nicotine fits: cigarette or other tobacco product withdrawal.  
> Wuh de ma: Mother of God (Firefly Mandarin)  
> Rationed: in a relationship. It comes from the phrase "save all your sugar for me."  
> Dish: attractive person.
> 
> Notes:  
> Using seidr is in most Norse myths, kind of cheating. It's also almost exclusively the domain of women, so if we apply those ideas to Asgard, Loki grew up feeling his most powerful skill was dishonorable and girly in a hyper-masculine honor oriented culture. He has issues.
> 
> Both Loki and Darcy (and Nat but it doesn't come up here) have experience using deception to get what they want, so the conversation between them may sound odd, but it's just them having found someone who speaks Sneaky.
> 
> I loved the phrase 'bag full of cats' too much to delete it, even if I had to cut most of that scene.
> 
> I know Fury is acting like a major jerk in this, and I apologize to any Fury fans out there, but Darcy is way too strong a leader-type to get on well with Fury, who is also a very leader-type guy, but they have totally different ways of leading. Steve sees Fury's actions as disruptive, because he's used to Darcy's straightforward all cards face up way of leading and isn't a huge fan of Fury's 'push the buttons and make them think it's their idea' method.
> 
> Kinetic powered electric generators can be pretty small, and charge whenever they move. Darcy's gloves will build up charge when she uses judo, runs, or even shakes her hands out. Then the contact plates and charge lines will put that charge into attacks that touch them to another conductive surface, like skin or metal armor.
> 
> Military bars are sort of like cop-bars, the only real patrons are servicemen and women. This one has a Captain America theme, because it is in New York, and Steve is pretty famously from New York if you study military history at all. It is also probably the worst place ever to do a Cap cosplay, and lets be real, the Avengers uniform looked like a really high grade cosplay based on the comics.
> 
> During WWII, it was illegal for a black man to give blood for a white man. Which was dumb and racist, and I could totally see Steve deciding that if the only universal donor in the group is black, and we have a type O who can't have any other blood who needs a spare pint, screw skin color, save my guy. I can also see Bucky decking the racist doctor and the Howlies bribing a nurse so Happy Sam could give blood to Dum-Dum. Which he would do happily, Dugan proved himself with the incompetent white guy remark. Also, Dugan has a canon thing about cigars.
> 
> Steve using PG swears is a good 80% of why Happy Sam doesn't think it's him, which is also why when he uses Firefly swearing AND the excessive stacked-swears Happy Sam knows it IS Steve.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “I don’t care what many on Asgard think, I care if you will protect the woman I love.”


	10. Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy celebrates the world not ending, falls apart, and organizes a press reaction.
> 
> Steve realizes how much Darcy puts on herself, becomes a dancing monkey, and asks Loki a very unique question.
> 
> Bucky gets put back in play, even if his handler has no idea what side he's on.

Darcy celebrated with the other Avengers─they’d decided they liked the name, even if it was clear they would not be answering to SHIELD at all. Tony spent about five minutes in awkwardly held silence before barraging Steve and herself with about a billion questions. She listened to him until he ran out of air, and in the brief moment of quiet during his inhale, gave Tony the phone number for his parent’s safe house and the tech billionaire spent the rest of the evening with the helmet of the Mark 7 on, having a long conversation. There may have been yelling, or crying. The helmet kept the call silent to the outside world, which Darcy would be all over, except it made him look like a dork. 

She hauled Steve, Thor and a chained (for appearances) Loki back to the carrier to get Jane out of Medical, and Coulson escorted them all back to the hotel that somehow, took very minimal damage. Somewhere she missed along the way, Loki’s clothing became a slightly better tailored copy of Phil’s Secret Agent Man look. Nobody blinked at his presence.

“I need a long shower, and a bed,” she announced as they closed the door. “Thor, can you take care of Jane? I’m wiped out.”

“I can indeed.” He scooped her out of the wheelchair and went to deposit Jane in her bed.

“Use the second bed, she can’t share right now, she’ll move her leg in her sleep!” Darcy called after them. “Sorry, Loki, that means you get the couch,” she said pointing.

“It can’t be worse than… ah.”

“Mad Hatter’s tea party?”

“Yes that. Where do you get such ridiculous names?”

“Pop culture. Ask Steve, he’ll explain most of it.”

In the shower her walls came down. All the pain and horror of the fight mixed with her memories of the War, and she ended up sobbing in the corner of the stall when Steve came in. He turned the water off, wrapped her in a soft towel, and held her, his boxers getting damp from sitting in the shower stall with her. She let him hold her as all her broken pieces fell apart, trusting him to catch them all and find the way they fit back together again.

“I should dry my hair,” she said, sniffling.

“Okay, Angel.” Steve helped her out of the shower and onto the chair from the desk in their room, then plugged in the blow dryer and started brushing out her hair with the air on one side and the brush on the other. When it was mostly dry, he pulled out a bag of soft foam rollers and did up her hair.

“I look like an old lady on a sit-com,” she told him.

“You always look like an angel to me, Darcy. Besides, those old gals were on to something, in the morning, all you have to do is pull these out, do a touch of brushing, and you’re glamorous enough to take the stage. My chorus line used to have these on in the trains so they could look perfect getting off at our next stop.”

“Why do you call me that?” she asked him. Darcy was no angel, and she knew it. But Steve kept calling her that. “I’m no saint.”

“Because since day one, when you beat Mac like a drum, I knew you were my guardian angel. You don’t have to be a saint to be that.”

“I’ve done horrible things Steve. I’ve had to, to keep Bucky even a little bit sane.”

“Wasn’t it an angel that killed literally every first born child in Egypt that didn’t have a ward on the door? Wasn’t it angels that brought warnings and judgments and curses? Weren’t they soldiers too?” Steve brushed a kiss on her forehead. “Their opening line is ‘fear not’ and that says something about them. You’re my Angel, Darcy, and you always will be. Kick me out, tell me it’s over, and I’ll go, but I will always think of you as my guardian angel.”

“You’re a sap. I need to attack a pillow with my face.”

Curled up beside Steve, wearing one of his shirts over her turquoise sleep shorts, she almost felt better. And when he nudged her out of a dream of freezing to death, she crawled half on top of him, and didn’t dream again.

<^>

Steve had known being Captain America so publicly would get them some attention. He hadn’t counted on how much. They were awakened by a banging on their door. He pulled away from an overly alert Darcy to answer it, only to see Loki.

“Come at once, the box that speaks is very insistent and annoying and no amount of commanding makes it stop.”

“Box that what now?” Steve asked, while Darcy pushed past him to her laptop.

“I have seventy-three alerts all subject lined ‘turn on the fucking news’ or some variation on the theme. I guess we turn on the news.”

Steve clicked the power on the remote to the television. Scenes from yesterday’s battle were playing. He switched the channel, more coverage of them fighting, more questions about them. Another channel was doing interviews, from survivors to fighters to police. Everyone wanted to know more about them, everyone was trying to pry into their pasts. Discussions on whether he was really Captain America or an impostor and if he should be trusted were rolling and cries for the government to figure them out were pouring from the screen when Darcy stole the remote and turned it off.

“So, we’re burned. That’s okay, they aren’t looking where it could really hurt us. But we have to get ahead of this or the outlets controlled by…  _ them _ are going to crucify us in the eyes of the public.” Darcy sighed, put in one ear bud with a playlist running, and sat to type out replies.

“I don’t understand,” Loki said to him. Steve pulled him away from Darcy so they didn’t break her concentration. He could hear “Let’s Get Down To Business” from Mulan playing, so it was important he let her work.

“Darcy is protecting her people, giving orders, calming them down. In the meantime, I have to figure out how to be the right kind of dancing monkey for people, so they won’t get in our way when the time comes to do what we have to.”

“She’s a general, marshaling troops. You are the Prince who puts on a good show for the people. I should wake my brother; he has played that role many times. Granted, he should probably never be allowed to lead an army, but he does make a very good─what did you call it? A dancing monkey?”

“Yes. But, I’d feel better with someone watching Darcy’s back, so if Thor comes with me… can I trust you to keep her safe?”

“I’m well known for lying and tricking and getting up to troublesome antics. I think many on Asgard would question your sanity for asking that even before I almost destroyed my birth realm and invaded yours.”

“I don’t care what many on Asgard think, I care if you will protect the woman I love.” 

The Norse god blinked at him.

“Loki, she is all I have right now, and I’ve seen the vulnerable sides she doesn’t show,” Steve sighed. “I know she has years more experience than I do, but I also know those years hurt her badly, and I need to know she has somebody watching her six or I can’t go do my part. Will you protect her?”

Loki looked stunned. “I swear upon whatever honor I may yet claim; she is safe with me. She and I have walked in similar shadow, seen similar pain, sacrificed similar parts of our souls. I will guard her faithfully, if for no other reason than she could have gone down my roads and didn’t and I yet wish to learn the trick of remaining a… good person,” he said awkwardly “in the face of so much pain and deceit. You can at least trust my self-interest, even if I am not a particularly trustworthy person.”

Steve nodded and went to grab the phone Tony had handed him the night before, and called Pepper Potts, Tony’s former assistant and now head of Stark Industries. Natasha had called her ‘scarily competent’, which was just about the best compliment someone like Agent Romanova could give.

Pepper arranged a press conference, and Steve put on his best suit, and Loki did something to Thor’s armor to make it look better and less battle-worn. Tony showed up at the last minute in sunglasses and hauling Banner behind him. Clint and Natasha showed up in a sedan with Coulson, who stood with Ms. Potts to the side as he took the podium and gave a speech about coming together, and being strong enough to fight on the days unlike any other. Somehow Darcy had managed to take what he and Thor roughed out and edit it into a more polished and effective final product. He didn’t know where she found the time, between dealing with her network, collapsing every few hours, and disappearing with Ms. Potts and a drastically altered Loki pretending to be a bodyguard to come back wearing a suit of navy blue and a complete makeup overhaul that almost totally transformed her face.

“And now I think we have time for a few questions.” A wave of sound hit him so he just pointed to the blonde in pink.

“Christine Everhart, WGN. Aside from the more… colorful members of your team, the public still does not know who you are. Why are you hiding the identities of people who should be called heroes?”

“Ms. Everhart, I’m not hiding anything about myself. My name is Steven Grant Rogers, I was born in 1918 in Brooklyn, I enlisted in the Army, became a publicity stunt and then went AWOL to free men taken for a labor camp, which got me into real fighting and wound up crashing a plane into arctic waters that I was only retrieved from a week or so ago. My record, as far as I know, is only limited by redacted sections and classified details, and that’s something to ask the Army about.” Steve gave the cameras his best bond-selling smile. “As for the others, they get to make choices about what they want shared. I won’t take that choice, that freedom, from them. I still remember the last time someone made people share personal information publicly, and that did not end pretty.”

“But what about the Hulk? Is he a public threat?”

Steve narrowed his eyes at her. “Hulk is a kind, caring, protective individual who personally saved not only many civilians in the Battle of New York, but the life of a close friend of mine. Additionally, from what I understand about the circumstances of what you might call his birth, he is a minor. I’m not giving the personal details of a  _ child _ to the public.”

“But you’d send one into battle.”

“Next time, I’ll call you and  _ you  _ can tell the two ton, super strong, bullet proof hero he can’t come play with his friends. I know to pick my battles. Next question, you, sir, in the green tie.”

“Ben Urich, New York Bulletin, what were the things that attacked us and do you know if they will return?”

“Good question Mr. Urich, sir, our information says that they are called Chitauri, they come from  _ really _ far away, and the only thing capable of making an,” he checked his notes, “Einstein-Rosen bridge from their neighborhood to ours is scheduled to be taken off planet as soon as humanly and Asgardianly possible. We have some top rank scientists working on containment and removal, and our ally Prince Thor of Asgard has offered the services of the Royal Vault to house the object in question. As far as we can translate, that’s Fort Knox but better and on another planet.”

“Will any other Avengers be making a statement?”

Steve looked back at his team, and saw panic in many eyes. He locked eyes with Thor, who bounded up and answered a few questions with barely understandable enthusiasm. Sitting next to Darcy, Steve felt her nudge his elbow with hers and he knew, they’d make it.

<^>

In the tube, the man listened to his handler bark orders and reprimand underlings. Then he heard “Defrost the Asset. He’ll be needed sooner than thought.”

_ DARCY! _

_ Yeah, what’s up? _

_ They’re defrosting me. I’ll need you. All of you. Everyone you can get. He’s not happy. _

_ Understood. I’m here, Bucky, I’m here. _

He listened calmly to the motions of defrosting him. The handler gave him a smile that had once looked like Steve’s.

“Time to get to work.”

_ Damn straight, jackass, _ he thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Burned- Spy speak for having a cover exposed.  
> Watching her six- literally, to watch behind, it means to guard someone's back in a fight.  
> AWOL- Absent Without Leave
> 
> Notes:  
> In Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the character of the Mad Hatter had a very bizarre Tea Party he roped Alice into. Darcy is using this scene as a code for all of what may have happened to Loki in Thanos's custody.
> 
> It's not uncommon for people who seem together and on top of everything in a crisis to fall apart when the crisis is over. It's even more common when the individual has PTSD, and almost guaranteed when the crisis is also a trigger, something that reminds them strongly of the traumatic event.
> 
> Steve does a really easy 40's look for Darcy's hair. While I prefer to do it this way, with slightly damp hair drying while I sleep, there is also a very good 15 minute method for people who don't like sleeping in curlers here: https://youtu.be/a4roRzuPXgw
> 
> Steve is actually siting a ton of actual Bible stuff here, much of which was also in the Judaic Holy Texts about angels. They are indeed very scary beings in canon who do a lot of stuff that if they weren't the servants of God, would be called Bad Things, like infantacide and cursing whole kingdoms. Steve has never felt Darcy had to have a certain level of purity or innocence to be a guardian angel, because he grew up on the old "Angels are freaking terrifying, let me learn you a thing," school.
> 
> Loki is literally never portrayed anywhere as being a good, honest, trustworthy person. It stands to reason that is because this was the prevailing thought on him in Asgard back when Asgard and Midgard still talked, so he is rather blindsided by Steve's request that Loki guard Darcy.
> 
> Steve's reference to making people share personal information publicly is about the colored badges Jews and anyone on the Queer spectrum had to wear in Hitler's regime to make them easier targets for hate-crime. This is all the shade.
> 
> By being so public and getting out in front of the media to tell their side, the Avengers really put the crunch on Hydra. When they were scattered and alone, Hydra had time to get the Insight Helicarriers up and running. They don't have that now that the Avengers are a clearly united team.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “You have no idea how hard the last four years have been, trying to hold him together with nothing more than love and stubbornness.”  
> “I know better than you think,” Darcy said, petting the other woman’s hair. “You aren’t alone. You’re never alone. We’re here now, and we’ve got the watch.”


	11. Some Assembly Required

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy tries to hold the team together against all odds for a much harder fight than the one they've just survived... being a family.
> 
> They're not alone, and that's something they ALL have to get used to now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline note! This in an added chapter of Team Building, set between the second and third sections of last chapter.

The day after the press conference, Darcy woke up pinning Loki’s face to the floor, his arm behind him. Steve had rolled off the other side of the bed, and Thor was in the doorway, well out of arm's reach.

“I did warn him,” Thor said.

“Did you  _ actually _ warn him, or did you just tell him to fuck around and find out?” she asked, shifting off Loki. “Because the first classes this as play stupid games, win stupid prizes, and the second means I have to go over care and keeping of traumatized siblings with you.”

“He said you would react with violence, as a warrior does,” Loki said, brushing imaginary dirt off his shirt. “It was my own error to believe that you would not be strong enough to effectively hurt me.”

“Yeah, we had that fight ourselves,” Steve said, and Darcy blushed at the memory. “So why are you waking us up at… 6:18 am?”

“Is Lewis dressed or not?” asked a voice from the main suite.

“I’m wearing pajamas, you perv,” she shot back, then facepalmed. “Sorry Tony, I didn’t mean to call you a perv, that was instinct.” 

She slipped around Thor and took the large coffee Stark offered her.

“I mean, it’s not like I haven’t heard it before,” Tony said with a shrug.

“Yeah, but you were specifically avoiding seeing me in less than modest clothes, you should get credit for non-pervy behavior.” She drank deeply of the life giving nectar of caffeine. “And if I’m being honest, that is at least partly on me for not adequately separating you and Howard in my head. It’s not fair to hold you accountable for his actions, because you’re different people. I’m sorry, and I’ll work on doing better.”

Tony shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah, well. It occurred to me last night that living in hotels can be expensive on a researcher’s budget, and I kind of owe you… so do you want to move in with me?”

Darcy blinked. “Steve, you said you’d fight Batman if he tried to seduce me, what’s your thought on Iron Man?”

Tony coughed. “NO! Not what I… look, the Tower has loads of room. Way too much for just Pepper and me. If we’re going to be keeping the band together, it makes sense to be centrally located in a defensible position. We can coordinate our responses better, maybe even train together. Be… a team?”

Darcy smiled. “I was joking, Tony. I see what you mean, and while I do sort of want to ring up a huge bill here and make the World Security Council pay it for what they pulled with that nuke, you’re right. Strategically it makes the most sense to move the team into the Tower, so we can get to know each other and build up our communication and teamwork skills. We won’t always have someone trustworthy on the inside throwing the fight for us, and if we’d faced Loki when he meant to hurt us… let’s say I’m glad he didn’t.”

Loki pulled an uncomfortable face that mirrored the one Tony was wearing. She wasn’t parsing the exact origin of the looks this early, so she focused on finishing her coffee and checking her email. By the time she was done, Tony was gone, Steve had packed their things, and Loki was looking less like a bloated toad eating a lemon.

The trip to Stark Tower took longer than it should, thanks to the liberally scattered debris. There were still rescue crews checking damaged buildings, and Darcy was making a running list in her head of what would be needed to rebuild.

“Welcome to Stark Tower,” said a slightly tinny British voice in the elevator. “Please state the name you wished to be addressed by for voice imprint.”

“Darcy Lewis,” she said, as the rest of the party rattled off their names. The elevator chimed.

“Thank you for your imprints, you are expected.”

The ride was swift, and although it could have been less crowded, she didn’t mind leaning up against Steve, and she noted Loki using the confined space to brush an arm against Thor. She made eye contact with her brother from a godly mother and pulled an ‘aww’ face. He quirked his lips but said nothing.

When they stepped out of the elevator on the penthouse level, Pepper Potts took over the process of settling them in rooms and showing off the amenities. A large living room with an attached kitchen, although it was stocked more like a bar, a patio that still had damage from the fight, a movie room with large recliner couches, a formal dining room, a lap pool and hot tub, and two shared bathrooms featuring a Thor-sized jetted tub and a bigger and more luxurious shower than Darcy had in her ritzy hotel suite respectively. Each of their “rooms” was a suite itself, with a bedroom, a bathroom that put the shared baths to shame, and a social room with sofas and bookshelves and a kitchenette.

“This is too much,” Steve said quietly to her.

“Tony is ridonkulously wealthy,” she whispered back.

“That’s no reason to accept…” he started, but Pepper gave them both a look and gestured for them to follow her to a room on the opposite side of the shared space from the suites. Thor was helping Jane as she let Doctor Banner explain the labs that would be available, once renovations were complete. Loki had vanished, but strangely, it didn’t worry Darcy. He’d show up when they needed him, and he wasn’t stupid enough to try his luck in a city that thought he was an invader. Especially this city. The civilian response to the invasion, just from what she’d gotten out of summaries and debriefing notes, had been decisive and  _ violent. _

“I’m sorry Miss Potts,” Steve started, but Pepper shook her head.

“Please don’t say no, Captain,” she said and her voice held a layer of desperation. “I know we oversold the offer, Tony doesn’t do happy mediums and we didn’t design this place thinking actual  _ friends _ would end up here. But please don’t tell him no, he needs this, and I need him to be okay.”

“No matter how opulent this place is,” Darcy said, “the point originally made still stands. We want to be a team, so we have to put in the work. This is the most logical place to do that work, and we can tolerate being a little uncomfortable at first to make that happen.”

“I will not be bought like a pet,” Steve growled. “I play a dancing monkey on TV, that doesn’t make me one in real life.”

“That’s not the intention,” Pepper insisted. “It took me some time to understand, but Tony doesn’t know what to  _ do _ with emotions. He has them, they all work as they should, but he has no clue what a reasonable or normal reaction to them is. I know Howard was your friend but he really fucked Tony up. One of the few things Tony feels confident in is his ability to provide for the people he cares about. He just needs time to figure you out so he can make that more function and less flash.”

“Gift giving love language?” Darcy asked.

“And acts of service,” Pepper said. “He kept the contracts he did with the Air Force because he cares about Rhodey enough to invent things to help keep Rhodey’s pilots alive. Medical supplies, emergency supplies, field housing... things that actually help.”

“Warm feet, a dry bed, and hot food,” Darcy said with a grin. “That’s the dream.”

Pepper made a face that indicated what she thought of a bar that low, but she waited for Steve to weigh in.

“So, if he’s doing this because he doesn’t know what we like yet… what’s your stake here?” Steve asked. “Why do you care if we say yes or no?”

“Because I love him and he’s self-destructing on me,” she said bluntly. “The man I love is dying by inches and I will do whatever it takes to slow that down, even if it only buys me a minute more with him. You, here, as a team? That’s a lot of minutes.”

Darcy felt her words like a punch in her gut, and she felt Steve feeling them too, the fuzzy warmth of her bond with him humming with his recognition of the similarities. They knew what it was to love someone losing themselves, to be unable to help them.

“How can we help?” Darcy asked. “Be specific. If we know what we’re bringing to the table, this gets a lot less Pretty Woman and a lot more tolerable.”

“Remind him he doesn’t have to save the world  _ alone _ anymore, that he can have backup,” she said, counting on her fingers. “Help me give him a reason to live through his fights, a family to come home to… but for god’s sake don’t call it that. He’s petrified of the idea of a family, even though you can practically  _ taste _ the need he has for one. Don’t let him push your boundaries, give him something stable to lean on. Too many people will give in if he throws money at them and it makes him worry nobody wants him for anything else.”

“We can do that,” Steve promised. “Jane will help with that last bit. She’s not the sort to be impressed by money.”

“Eh, if he finds the right types of fancy science toys she  _ can _ be bribed,” Darcy said. “But she categorically doesn’t lie about if she likes someone or not. She likes Tony, she’ll say it. She decides he’s being an ass, she’ll say that too, and clearly list her expectations for improvement.”

“Thank you,” Pepper said with a half sob, pulling Darcy into a hug. “You have no idea how hard the last four years have been, trying to hold him together with nothing more than love and stubbornness.”

“I know better than you think,” Darcy said, petting the other woman’s hair. “You aren’t alone. You’re never alone. We’re here now, and we’ve got the watch.”

<^>

Steve didn’t think he’d ever be fully comfortable with the way Tony threw money around, but Darcy had decided they had to help the guy, and that involved letting him spend money on them. After about a week of letting Tony gently badger him into buying a few things for the suite and the ingredients he needed for the few things he cooked, Steve put his foot down.

“So I was thinking today we take a look at your wardrobe, Gramps,” Tony said at breakfast. Only they were up yet, or in Tony’s case, still. “You’ve got the Captain Casual look down, Natasha does good work, but you don’t have anything nicer. If you want to take Lewis on a snazzy date, you’ll need a suit. My guy is great, you’ll love Giuseppe.”

“No, Tony,” Steve said with a dark look over the rim of his coffee cup. Caffeine didn’t do any more for him than alcohol did, but he liked the ritual of it, and the modern era had some wonderful flavored syrups and creamers to add. “Not today, and not my date outfits. My dates with Darcy are a Stark Free Zone.”

“But… it’ll be weeks before SHIELD sorts out your back pay!” Tony said, pouting. Under the superficial hurt of not being allowed to spend his money, there was something else. Steve waited, and Tony didn’t disappoint. “Lewis… I owe her. She deserves nice things. I don’t want to make it weird, though, because I’m head over heels for Pepper and Lewis is scary. I obviously can’t take her to nice restaurants, I was kinda banking on you handling that, if I helped with the back end stuff.”

“Darcy’s version of nice and your version of nice are… different,” Steve said diplomatically. “Nice sit down dinners involve more than one piece of silverware, in her book.”

“She’s not wrong,” Tony said with a pained look.

“Trust me, I want to spoil her too,” Steve said with a sigh. “But I also know taking her to someplace with a separate wine menu right now will end badly for me. You know what her plan for today is?”

“Um, I don’t know what my own plan is until Jarvis or Pepper reminds me.”

“Darcy’s spending the morning handing out food and water in areas that are suffering a food desert due to the destruction and debris. Then she’s talking to the emergency relief medics about resources they need, and trying to beg, borrow, or barter something to cover any gaps. After that she’ll come home and play happy family with us at dinner because she’s scared someone is going to bolt or snap if she doesn’t provide a safe emotional harbor for us, and then she’s going to spend half the night on her laptop leading her big secret army in a quest to end fascism, free Bucky, and maybe solve world hunger or something while she’s at it.”

“I know it’s ironic coming from me, but does she sleep?” Tony asked.

“Yes,” Steve said. “Not well. Not while there’s work to do. That’s why we’re not shopping today, I want to go with her and help so she doesn’t have to do as much. Plus, that doubles as a date, for us.”

Tony blinked, his eyes going soft and then focusing beyond Steve’s head. He drummed his fingers and then snapped them. “Jarvis, clear my schedule.”

“Tony…” Steve said warily.

“You were wrong, Capsicle,” Tony said with a manic grin. “Today we ARE shopping. Specifically, you and I are going to go meet with the medics and we’re going to buy them whatever they need. The whole nine yards, the best of everything they want. Then we’re  _ both _ going to take Darcy out for lunch, and talk about what other areas she thinks could use a sudden influx of philanthropy. You too. I’ll get you set up with charitable funds to spend where you want it. You shouldn’t be worrying about where you’ll get resources to do the things you want to, especially if what you want to be doing is helping people.”

Steve felt something cold in his chest break, like sunrise after a long night. He knew he was grinning like a fool, but he couldn’t find it in him to care. Tony’s enthusiasm was infectious.

“Hospitals,” he said. “I want to fund hospitals. I don’t want anybody else’s Ma to sit up late doing the math of food versus rent versus medicine, because there’s only enough money for one. And vaccination research, I want more things stopped before they get started.”

“You got it!” Tony crowed. “What do you think, the Steven G. Rogers Free Hospital of Brooklyn?”

“No, the Sarah Rogers Memorial Fund,” Steve said. “So I can cover more than Brooklyn.”

“Oh, I like where your head’s at Man With A Plan.” Tony slapped him on the shoulder.

They ended up meeting Darcy at a tiny Chinese hole in the wall in Harlem called Ghengis Connie’s. Tony was fascinated by everything, running his fingers gently over the laminated menus, the paper wrapped chopsticks, and the fake flowers on the table. The food was good enough that nobody spoke while they ate, although Steve suspected in Darcy’s case that it was more about being on the brink of exhaustion.

After they were done, though, Steve went over the choices the medical teams had made for supplies, tools, and places to set up stations, including one on the fifth floor of the Tower. Darcy melted against him in happiness as he laid out Tony’s plan.

“Happy?” he asked, kissing her hair.

“Very,” she said, snuggling into him. “You took a huge weight off my shoulders today, both of you. And I am going to have so much fun with that charity fund, Tony. Just… after I get some sleep.”

“Yes, you should definitely sleep,” Tony told her. “Tired charity isn’t as much fun. Now, I’ve actually never eaten here before, do you know if this is one of those take the bill to the counter places?”

“You eat free,” said the woman who had waited on them, the Connie of Genghis Connie’s, if Steve guessed correctly. “You stop them bombing my restaurant, you eat free.”

“Uh,” Tony said, and looked at Steve in panic.

“We appreciate that, Ma’am, but part of why we’re eating out today is to put a little boost in the local economy,” Steve explained smoothly. “See, we spend money here, you have money to pay for something at the bodega, the bodega owner has money to pay his babysitter, who has money to do something, and so on. If we don’t pay you, then we have to go out and find someone else to take the money we need to put into the system, and my girl here could really use a nap.”

“M not tired,” Darcy said, eyes closed, still snuggled into Steve’s arm. “Can do this all day.”

“That’s my line, Angel, and you need sleep,” Steve said, kissing her hair again. He looked back to Ghengis Connie and her stern scowl. “Please, Ma’am? If you don’t feel okay about us paying for  _ our  _ food, then use it to pay for the next person who’s obviously hungry to have more than soup. We’re allowed to do nice things for others, aren’t we? It’s kinda what a hero does, yeah?”

“You are a sneaky one,” she said, wagging a finger at him, but she took the small stack of bills Tony put on the table.

<^>

Natasha was the one who noticed Bruce having a panic attack.

Everyone had seen the fight before the panic attack, it had gotten loud and someone had broken a glass beaker in the labs, although nobody who had been there could say who. Jane had been instrumental in defusing it before Hulk came out, by insisting on doing things in the correct order and calling Thor to come take Tony to the medical team that had moved into the tower during the city’s recovery. With the object of his anger removed, Bruce didn’t have anywhere to direct his rage and that seemed to calm things down.

Seeming and doing are two different things though, and nobody knows that quite like a Black Widow.

“Come,” she said, brushing up close to Bruce to herd him toward the door. Sure enough, he skittered sideways and she pointed to the elevator behind him. “You and I are going for tea.”

“I don’t want tea,” he said mulishly.

“I don’t care,” Natasha said. “I want tea, and my favorite tea room has banned Clint. So we’re getting tea.”

“Can’t you get tea on your own?” Bruce asked, as she hit the button to the ground floor.

“Don’t be silly,” she scoffed, dodging the question. 

Bruce sulked until they were in the tea room, sitting in her favorite private booth at the back. The waiter brought them glasses and a samovar, and a flight of marmalades and jams, then stepped away without a word. She prepared their tea as Bruce worked through the breathing portion of panic reduction.

“This is really good,” he said, sounding shocked. She decided not to take offence.

“It is. Do you want to explain why you were trying to fit fifty pounds of panic into a two pound sack?”

“Just going for it, huh?” he grumbled.

“I’m a spy,” she said. “You have reason to be paranoid. Playing the game cards up is the best I can do to show that I mean you no harm.”

He sighed. “SHIELD proved they can find me, no matter how far out of the world I take myself. I don’t argue Fury’s reasons for bringing me onto the project, and I’m grateful they left me be for as long as they did, but I know now that I can’t just go vanish again.”

“I’m sorry,” Natasha said. “For my role in that. It was necessary, but that doesn’t make it kind, nor does it give you back the comfort of aliases and anonymity. I know it doesn’t make it better that you  _ can’t, _ but at least you don’t  _ have _ to be out in the cold now?”

“For now,” Bruce said darkly. “But Hulk… he’s a monster. Sooner or later, he’ll hurt someone, break something, and then I have to find a way to pick up the pieces.”

“You won’t be picking them up alone,” Natasha said firmly. “No matter how much red there is in the ledger, you are not balancing the debts alone anymore. You have people on your side now, people who can and will fight for you, protect you, drag you out for tea when your brain is turning into weasels.”

“Thanks, Natasha,” Bruce said. “I just hope I don’t hurt you guys.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she said and poured him more tea. “Bigger men than you have tried and failed to kill all of us. Hulk is strong, but he’s not Red Skull, Iron Monger, Whiplash, the Destroyer, or whoever Mad Hatter turns out to be.”

“You left your rogues gallery off the list,” Bruce said with a small grin.

“Hulk is also not Soviet Russia or Clint’s eating habits,” she said, patting him on the hand. “Drink your tea, and I’ll tell you about Budapest.”

<^>

Clint and Natasha had been working a small side project when she muttered something about tea and vanished with Bruce. He wasn’t bothered by that, at least not by that alone. It worried him that she wasn’t as open anymore with him, he worried that seeing him controlled had broken her trust in him, but he knew she could handle herself. The best way for him to solve the problems he was worried about was to keep going, and complete the mission.

Namely, finish the risk-assessment profile for one Darcy Lewis, so that when Natasha returned they could put together a more complete plan for defending the Lieu from spooks, spies, and sundry suspicious sorts.

He poked through the phone he’d lifted from evidence. Most of Doctor Foster’s things had been returned to her while STRIKE was still in New Mexico, but a few items had ended up in a banker box in evidence lockup. When he and Natasha moved into the tower, he’d brought the box along as an apology gift, but he’d kept the phone. Darcy had already switched to a new one anyway, and would probably get upgraded to the latest StarkPhone by the end of the week, so this was only useful for the contacts list and photo gallery.

The photo gallery was barren, only a few shots of school bulletin boards with information on course offerings and bake sales, an accidental selfie, and a minute long video clip of Hulk beating an Abrams tank to death on the quad of the school while Darcy bitched about military overstep and fascism in the background.

The contacts were proving more fruitful. Her parents, obviously, her grandmother’s number which led to an answering machine recording of an elderly woman with a wry tone to her voice, some professors and other students from Culver, and her friends from high school. He ran background checks on all of them, but there was one that eluded him, a prepaid phone that was basically a burner from Walmart. It was in her phone with the rat emoji as a name, and he didn’t know if that was good or bad.

When in doubt, seek more information.

He probably shouldn’t steal the phone Darcy actually used. He definitely shouldn’t watch her putting in her passcode so he could unlock it.

But if he happened to find her phone in the bathroom, and it happened to ring while he was trying to find her to return it, and the number was the same as the mystery rat emoji number….

“Hello, Darcy Lewis’s phone, who can I say is calling?”

“It’s Rat,” said the woman on the line. He should have figured. “I would have called sooner but I forgot to put Lost Girl’s number in my phone and I had to go digging through all my journals from a year ago to find the paper she wrote it on, then I remembered she put it on the back of a drawing and I had to go pry it out of the frame.”

“Uh huh?” Clint said encouragingly. “I know she’s here somewhere, just hang on while I find her.”

“I saw you on TV,” Rat said. “I knew it was you when I saw you walk up to the podium. Knew it was her, too, even though she did a good ass job with that makeup. You on the other hand… you were a surprise, Picasso.”

“Um, I think you have me confused with someone else, Ma’am,” Clint said, spotting Steve’s hair over the back of the recliner in the media room. He stepped into the room and into Steve’s peripheral vision at a distance, so as not to spook him. Steve paused his show in response.

“See, there’s your tell, nobody else has literally ever called me Ma’am.”

“Sorry, Miss Rat, but that’s now two people,” Clint said with a smirk. “But I think I found your Picasso.”

“Wait, Rat’s on the phone?” Steve said, perking up. “Why do you have Darcy’s phone?”

“She left it in the bathroom,” Clint said, handing the phone over. “Tell Darcy she needs to recruit this person, she pegged you as Darcy’s swap from watching you walk to the podium.”

“A fishhook in my heart,” Steve muttered. He lifted the phone. “Hiya Rat, how’ve you been? Darcy’s out cold at the moment, she overdrove her headlights and I had to put her to bed early.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Perv: pervert  
> Ridonkulously: ridiculous to the extreme  
> Pretty Woman: a movie about a prostitute taken in by a rich man as a project, essentially My Fair Lady but modern  
> Samovar: an urn with a spigot at its base used to boil water for tea, especially in Russia  
> Rogues gallery: the selection of bad guys fought by a superhero in comics  
> Overdrove her headlights: worked past the point her reserves could support it
> 
> Notes:  
> Tony and Loki have the same weird look because neither of them is accustomed to or comfortable with positive feedback or praise outside of specific skillsets. Praising Tony for emotional intelligence/people skills or Loki for honor or battle strength will be like a starving person eating a slice of chocolate cake. Desired, but painful.
> 
> The suites were guest rooms for if people party too hard and need to be safely stashed somewhere, or if they want to get privacy. Pepper doesn't consider any of Tony's usual party guests to be friends, and frankly neither does he, so they're set up in "generic opulence" style. So far they haven't been used, because the Tower hadn't been finished long enough to have a big party when the Battle of New York happened.
> 
> Darcy is intentionally calling back to her turn on the Dancing Monkey Circuit with the "warm feet, dry bed, hot food" comment, even if Pepper doesn't get the reference. Even Tony wouldn't, despite his Dad's obsession because that show was one of the things that got censored to heck and back during the McCarthy Era so there's no extant record of it.
> 
> As always, I/we have the watch means I/we love you.
> 
> Sarah Rogers and Maria Stark would have probably been Really good friends if they ever got to meet, and in whatever afterlife she's in, Sarah is probably very proud to have her own memorial foundation working hand in hand with Maria's. Even if they butt heads on everything else, Tony and Steve can bond over being TOTAL Mama's Boys.
> 
> Ghengis Connie's is the place from the Luke Cage Netflix show. It's depicted as the sort of low-cost greasy spoon that has amazing food in large quantities, which is Steve's sort-filter for places to eat. It's also the sort of place Tony, son of billionaire Howard Stark, would never have been, hence his tactile explorations of everything and lack of certainty about the bill, since he's not familiar with the set-up.
> 
> Russian tea is served in glasses, not cups, with metal holders with handles that the glass sets into. It is also usually sweetened with jam or marmalade instead of sugar.
> 
> As established in Ships In The Night, Clint and Natasha have ended up in Budapest together several times. Sometimes she tells the story of the day she met Clint in Budapest, sometimes she tells the story of when she was brought in from the cold in Budapest, and sometimes she fabricates something entirely new. Almost nobody knows the actual history of Budapest. In this instance she tells the story of the first time because it relates to Clint's eating habits and their place on her rogues gallery.
> 
> Natasha's nemeses, in order:  
> 1\. Clint's food preferences.  
> 2\. Red Room.  
> 3\. Hydra.  
> 4\. People who talk in the theater.
> 
> If you haven't read the Director's Cut of Time recently, Rat was an OC added in there, a fellow patient during Darcy's inpatient hospital stay. She identified Darcy as having other people in her head and could spot the switches, but didn't realize the swaps weren't just alters in a dissociative identity network before seeing Steve.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “Okay, who broke Short and Bossy?”


	12. Ignition in Five, Four, Three...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hydra activates the Asset, which will be their downfall.
> 
> Bucky is going Home.

They’d been living in the tower long enough for it to start feeling a bit like home when Darcy felt the tug that was Bucky requesting a swap. She’d helped him a bit as he recovered from the tube, supplying memory to atrophied muscle as they pushed him to get back in fighting shape, but she hadn’t expected a call so soon.

_ Hey there sexy, how can I help? _ she asked.

_ They’re prepping me for the chair, _ he said.

_ But you had the chair before you went in the tube last time, and unless I missed something big, you haven’t been out on a mission yet. _

_ They’re not taking chances, _ he said.  _ Well, not taking chances of me disobeying. They want it to be really hard to break the programming this time. _

_ Why? _

Her question went unanswered as they pushed him into the chair and strapped him down. She had to focus on pulling as much of him as she could to her side, squinting against the electric blue-purple afterimage of the shocks combined with the device on his eye meant to disrupt the parts of his brain they deemed a threat. It hurt worse this time, maybe because his nerves were still raw from the last time in the chair and the cryofreeze and the general agony from his arm. Maybe she was just feeling it clearer because he was in her own timezone now. Whatever the reason, she could feel his chest heaving in time to her panting as they pulled the bite guard from his mouth.

“Do you know who these people are?” asked the handler, passing them a folder of information.

“Oni moya missiya,” Bucky said as Darcy shrank back in shock at her own face in the folder. It was an action shot, poorly framed, but it caught more of her actual face than she liked. Considering the effort she went to with contouring her features for the press conference, she had hoped nobody would be able to tell she was the same woman.

“Yes they are,” the handler said, and then she was back in her favorite chair in the Tower common room. Loki stood at her side, a hand at her temple.

“The hell?” she asked him.

“Your seidr was interacting badly with something, causing pain, I was merely removing the pain. You have very interesting powers, Lady Darcy.”

“Yeah, you could say that. Steve, I need sitrep on all Avengers.” She tried to block the pictures of her friends under the word ‘kill’ on Bucky’s mission brief.

“Tony is at the South Dakota safe house with Pepper and, well. Thor is getting you Gatorade with Jane, Bruce is out helping with clean up duty today, Clint and Nat are at HQ filling out forms with Coulson. As of last mandated check five minutes ago, all are alive and well.” He looked at her funny. “Are all the swaps with him so bad?”

“Only when they prep him for a mission. Electric shocks, like I did to Loki.” Both men hissed in sympathy as Thor helped wheel Jane into the Common Room.

“I got you the blue kind, that good?” Jane asked. “The medical response team on five really hates giving up supplies.”

“It’s fine, and we did sort of destroy large chunks of infrastructure, they have a right to be pissy. Someone pull up a conference com, I  _ need _ to talk to the others.”

Thor passed Jane a tablet and she entered the right codes.

“This is Lieu, I need a sound-off,” Darcy said into the open room.

“Jeez, Lewis, you got your check in five minutes ago,” Tony complained. 

“I’m having a panic attack, so humor me,” Darcy shot back.

“Fine, Iron Man, present.”

“Bruce, present.”

“This is Widow, I’m available but Barton is stuck in a therapy session. Is it wrong to murder incompetents?”

“YES!” said everyone on the line.

“Sammy boy, you with us?”

“Yes I am here Miss Lewis, although I would appreciate a different code name. Everyone else has a cool code name.  _ I  _ have a cool code name. But you never call me Byzantine.”

“Wait, you’re Byzantine? Sorry, I don’t usually track the real identities of recruits to HERO. But we have a problem on our hands. Last POW Standing has been reactivated. We’re the targets.”

“Say WHAT now?” Tony demanded.

“Squids are unhappy with us,” she said. “We’re strong, we work well together, and we made it clear we’re not theirs to manipulate or control. As far as  _ they _ know, he has an excellent making-people-dead record.” 

“So do we,” Natasha said. “We’ll handle it, together. I’ll bring Barton home as soon as he’s out.”

“Good plan. Everyone, regroup at the Tower when you can. We need to combine knowledge. Lieu, signing off.” She counted the sign-offs and looked at her friends.

“We can do this, Angel,” Steve reassured her.

“I know, it’s just… been so long. I didn’t think I’d have the kinds of extra targets to protect that I do. I….” She felt her panic drop away suddenly, and looked up at Loki, who had a hand on her shoulder.

“Lady Darcy, if I may,” Loki began softly, like he was expecting her to stop him, “the Avengers are not easy targets. All of them have survived people trying to kill them.  **_I_ ** tried to kill some of them, so I know how hard it is. They are warriors who fight beside you, not innocents you must defend.”

“Right. Resources.” She nodded and he removed the hand, letting her control her fear herself. She pulled out her phone and brought up the HERO app. She flicked through the sub-menus until she got to the folder marked with three fire emojis and a skull. Inside she found the icon of a black cat with a white 13 on its head. She tapped it.

“What are you doing?” Steve asked.

“I’m activating the Heracles Burn operation,” she said offhandedly. “Oh, I should let the team know.”

“Heracles Burn?” Steve asked her. “You’ve mentioned that before. What is it?”

“Remember the Kilroy letter? Where I told Schmidt his logo sucked?”

“Yeah, many heads versus many tentacles.” Steve chuckled. “They didn’t know you were you then... Bucky got so much grief for being a nerd.”

“Well if you want nerdery,” she said, “Heracles slew the original monster of myth by burning the heads, not cutting them off. The burnt heads could not regrow new ones, no two more to take its place. In the world of spies, being outed as a spy is called being burned. See where I’m going?”

“You want to burn all the heads,” Steve said slowly, a smile creeping across his face.

“With napalm if needed,” she agreed happily, then turned back to her phone, hitting the alert app.

**Operation Heracles Burn is going Active in T minus three minutes. Places, people.**

Her phone dinged with a message from Lucky13.

**Black Cat prepared to launch, do I have an updated target list?**

**Sending now.** she replied. Steve took the Gatorade bottle and she used the tablet to shoot off an email with the latest list of known Hydra agents about to encounter a string of bad luck.

<^>

Steve made sure everyone coming in was up to speed on the operation Darcy was running from her laptop. Bruce nodded and went to grab a shower, which, frankly, was a great idea, because he was covered in dust and stank. Natasha and Clint just nodded before retreating into the room they’d claimed, and Phil explained they’d all had roles before the Avengers had to go public. Phil borrowed a computer, Tony left tablets lying around like mints in a bowl, and retreated to a corner to initiate his part of the plan. Tony and Pepper came in and Tony was looking a little steadier than he had right after the whole flying a bomb into space incident. The time with his mother had done him good.

Darcy wrapped up her work, took a deep breath and started laughing.

“Okay, who broke Short and Bossy?” Tony asked.

“I’m fine, I’m fine, I just,” she wiped her eyes with the cuffs of her oversized sweatshirt. “I have the best news.”

“That would be?” Bruce asked, as he cut through to the kitchen to prepare dinner.

“Fucking Arnim Zola downloaded his brain onto a cutting edge magnetic tape computer in 1972,” Darcy explained. “Dude has delusions of immortality, but this just means  _ I _ finally get to off the bastard.”

Steve began laughing too. Fucking Zola tried to save himself, by going the one place Darcy and her team could hurt him worst, inside a computer. It was hysterical, and his laughter bordered on manic. He knew he was unnerving the team-members still around him, but he couldn’t stop until he was wheezing like he hadn’t since 42.

“I do not understand your mirth at the continued existence of a foe,” Loki said to him with a frown. “Is this some… good person thing?”

“No, it’s absolutely not. It’s a revenge thing. Darcy with computers, and her friends, and it’s…” Steve trailed off trying to find a way to explain it to Loki. “What if your worst enemy tried to evade you by becoming pure magic, seidr, and not particularly developed seidr?”

“That’s not how seidr works, but in theory if it were possible, I could crush them beneath my heel like a… oh.” Loki smiled. “Sister of Shadow, I would like to bestow that celebratory gesture called a “high five” upon you.”

Darcy grinned and held up a hand. “I gladly receive the highest of fives, this is gonna be fun.”

“One problem, Short Stack,” Tony said. “Magnetic tape computers require proximity. Do you know where he is?”

“No, Treasurer is on it, though. When he finds it, well, Bucky’s arm has an EMP bomb in it I’ll need to get rid of somehow. I wonder how much of his core personality and mind will survive an EMP blast that could kill a city power grid? Maybe I should let it off at a distance, let him linger a bit.”

“You are thinking like me,” Loki said. “I request you stop, I am using you as a lesson in being less like me, and you are disrupting my study.”

“Sorry, Loki, I’ll try to be less torture-y. He deserves it though, for the record. Fucking Zola.”

“Amen,” Steve called out, then looked at Tony who had done the same.

“What?” Tony asked at Steve’s questioning look. “Dad talked non-stop about the war, I mean obviously he lied a little, seeing as you’re you and not the version of you I hate the guts of, but I still know how you respond to someone saying ‘Fucking Zola’. It’s not that weird.” 

Steve decided that was a box FULL of cans of worms and he didn’t want to open any part of it right now. He turned back to Darcy and clapped his palms together. “So, how do we find him?”

“Zola? Working on it.” She blinked. “Oh, you meant Bucky. We don’t, he finds us. This is going to be way easier with him trying to get in, than us looking for him. Jarvis, security shutters, if you would be so kind, they might want him sniping.” Metal shutters slammed into place over the windows.

“Will that be all, Miss Lewis?”

“Up the ultraviolet light content by 15% please, no need to be more depressed. Thank you.”

“Of course, Miss Lewis.”

<^>

He let them gear him up, fit the black mask over his face, even add the stupid glove to his metal hand. It was mostly for show, anyways. Fear was a preferred weapon. Fear created chaos, chaos created more fear, enough fear created people dumb enough to be led to the slaughter willingly. He didn’t care.

They showed him the missions again. Men and women with lists of powers and skills he would need to overcome, weaknesses he could exploit. He stopped at the dark haired woman, touching the blurred picture caught mid-battle, her lips parted in an angry cry. Darcy Lewis. She was listed as a skilled fighter, who had an affinity for electric weapons. No known powers, weaknesses, standard human frailty, and her friendship with one Doctor Jane Foster. He flipped to the page on Thor. Weakness, close relationship to one Doctor Jane Foster. Connections he hadn’t been told to exploit, strange. 

Iron Man. Intelligent, creative, well equipped, capable of flight and ranged combat with his suit but physically vulnerable without it. Weaknesses, the arc reactor in his heart.

Captain America. Superhuman strength, speed, agility, and uses a shield as a weapon. Weaknesses, naive, susceptible to emotional manipulation through civilian targets.

_ You’re keeping the outfit, right? _

_ You’ll love it; we’re going to the future. _

He blinked twice at the words in his head. Familiar, but not. Him, but not him.

“Are you ready?” asked the handler.

“Da.”

“Good. We’ll have a team drop you off near the site tonight. We’re going to help shape the century.”

_ Yes, yes I am, _ a part of him thought.  _ And you will never see it coming. _ He tried to ignore those thoughts as he got into the small plane. Instead he recited a poem in his head he didn’t know when he learned.

_ Burn the air, and boil the sea. I don’t care, I’m still free, you can’t take the sky from me. _

No, that was not him, not what he was made for. He was made for nightmares and hiding, the boogey man who scared the boogeymen.

_ Tili Tili Bom. Close your eyes soon. Someone's walking by the window, and knocking at the door. _

_ Tili Tili Bom. Can you hear the birds through the night? He's already made his way into the house, for those who cannot sleep. _

He closed his eyes. Soon, the voices in his head would decide what he was. Until then, he had a mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Oni moya missiya: They're my mission (Russian)  
> Seidr: Magic or superpowers (Asgardian)
> 
> Notes:  
> Darcy's particular brand of paranoia is backed by actual threat, which is why people tend to indulge her, which is also useful to reducing her panic attack. Also, all of them have at least some history with panic attacks due to their own super powered mental health issues. Said issues are also why Natasha is pissed at Clint's psych team, because they're not _helping_ him, even if she does know on some level that has more to do with the type of problem than the competency of the doctors.
> 
> The Byzantine Empire was one of the world's first and largest bureaucracies. Phil likes to pass himself off as a paper-pusher bureaucrat, and does like a well made form, but this got him the codename Byzantine.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> She stepped into view, a shadow in blue with a red wing on her left shoulder. His brain caught. Tsel' missii. Orders: terminate.


	13. Burn, Baby, Burn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy monitors the action, talks with her friends and helps the Winter Soldier break in.
> 
> Steve introduces Bucky around and breaks up an argument between the resident cooks.
> 
> Bucky leads another Squid squad to their deaths and breaks.

Darcy caught a few naps in between checking the slow unraveling of lies. Everything was working out, just slowly. Which was what she planned, no need to startle the prey. Her agents were grinding Squid operations to a halt, with misfiled paperwork, blown covers, badly packed provision bags, viruses on computers, and extra red tape that they needed to cut through. All totally normal accidents and bad luck that could happen to anybody. Thirteen was very good at her job. 

So was Byzantine. 

She smiled at Phil when the latest report from Treasurer hit her inbox. Five ops held up due to missing requisition forms that nobody had heard of before today. He gave her a tiny nod and went back to revising the channels for obtaining properly back-filled aliases.

She did a quick headcount of everyone’s last known locations.

Barton had emerged from the room and was in the kitchen making cookies, Bruce was at the stove over some stew type thing that smelled amazing, Natasha was on her phone, Thor and Loki were trying to play chess with Jarvis, using a holographic board. Steve had gone down to five to give blood, because his regenerated so quickly he could do that regularly, and it was one of the few reasons the medical team there hadn’t tried to off any of them for constantly stealing the Gatorade stash. Tony had passed out face down on the sofa, and Jane was off in research land on her computer. All was pretty much well.

“Is it morally wrong to put up a Craigslist personals ad for Rumlow while he’s on a mission?” Nat asked the room. Barton burst out laughing, and Loki suddenly became more interested in the room than the game.

“What is this list of Craig, and why is a personnel advertisement upon it possibly morally wrong?”

“Well,” Bruce explained, “Craigslist is an internet site for posting ads, either to perform a service for money, to hire someone to perform a service, or sell old stuff you don’t want. But they also have a section called personals, which is to find… ah, Darcy, I need an Asgard translation.”

“Personals ads are when you want to find someone to have bedplay with. Or a real relationship, but that’s pretty rare on sites like Craigslist, mostly it’s just people who want a quick roll in the hay. Sex, no lingering attachments. Normally I’d say putting up a personals ad for someone else is petty and mean, most definitely morally wrong, but this is Rumlow in question here. Just to check, this is the same guy we call Crossbones on the under-net, right?”

“Yes, because we are not entirely sure he has a real skull, it might be a cleverly made animatronic replica,” Barton filled in.

“Okay, I hate that jerk. And he reports to the head Squid, so go on and do it. Make it M4M, and paint him as wanting a very tough and masculine partner. His head might explode and then I can finally call the bets on if he has a brain and if so, is it human.” She thought a bit. “Make sure to have an apology gift basket delivered to whoever answers it. I’m not willing to put an innocent bear through that and not apologize.”

“Okay,” Natasha said. “If the responder is attractive enough and passes background checks, can I send the basket with Junior Agent Miller? He likes a nice burly top, and his job makes getting any sex very hard on him. I actually don’t despise Miller, it would be nice to introduce him to someone, right?”

“Make sure Miller’s not currently pining over anyone, and do not tell him it’s a set up. If stuff happens, it happens, if it doesn’t, there is no need to make him think there could have been,” Phil added.

“Good point, Byzantine,” Darcy said. “Ugh, what time is it, Jarvis?”

“It is currently 7:48 in the evening, Miss Lewis.”

“So, sun is setting if not down. Are our outer surveillance systems running again yet?”

“They are. There is also a group of four men on a rooftop opposite us, if the shutters were not down they would have a clean shot.”

“Understood.”

“Understand what?” Steve asked as he came back in.

“Bucky and three orders of Calamari are on a roof that should have been a good perch, except we have the shutters down. I’m going under again to help get him back. You good to catch me, or should we pull Jane?”

“I’ve got you, Angel. Go get our jerk back.”

“Roger that, Captain.” She let him settle in behind her on the bank seat and dropped into Bucky’s head.

<^>

Steve caught Darcy’s drooping body and held her up as her head rolled forward. He heard mumbling, and then she, no, Bucky started struggling against him.

“Bucky? Bucky, it's me. It's Steve,” he pleaded.

“Ty moi missiya.” The struggle got stronger. Bucky had gotten turned around to face him, and Steve was restraining fists coming at him.

“Oh for the love of… Bucky, it’s me, oh come on! Jane? I need help here!

“Eto vremya, kotoryye pytayutsya chelovecheskiye dushi,” Jane called out from across the room in her chair.

Bucky stopped struggling and looked up at him. “Steve, you punk, let go of my arms.”

“Bucky,” he breathed as he loosened his hold. “She told me, but I saw you fall, and… I thought you were dead.” 

“And I thought you were smaller. I thought we told you, no more science experiments. Or is that wrong? My memory these days is… not great.”

Steve laughed. “No, we did agree, no more volunteering for science experiments. You’re in Darcy’s body, remember, she’s not that tall.”

“Oh. Wow. We are going to have to figure a way around this, aren’t we? Unless… Steve, if you tell me you fucked up our chance with Darcy, I’m going to kill you, and it will  **not** have a single thing to do with the Squids.”

“This many years, and you still think with your… Buck, Darcy is very happy to love both of us,” Steve said softly, reverently. He still had trouble believing it sometimes. “And we’re working on figuring out the height difference. There’s been some working with something Darcy calls ‘cowgirl’ that’s been pretty successful.”

“TMI ROGERS!” Barton shouted from the kitchen. “I almost dropped the snicker-doodles, you ass.”

“If Barton’s snicker-doodles are compromised because of anyone, I will hurt them,” Natasha said. “Even you, Zima.” She emphasized her point with a throwing knife pointed in their direction.

“Pauk, you got out!”

“Thanks to you, and a certain crazy bowman, yes. I go by Natasha now. But I’m still the Chernaya Vdova when I need to be.”

“That’a girl," Bucky beamed, his pride and happiness shining out of Darcy’s face, clear as day and twice as blinding.

“And I’ll thank all of you to keep the noise down,” Pepper said. “We finally found a sleeping pill that works on Tony. Do  _ not _ wake him.”

“Sorry Clint, Nat, Pepper. We’ll try to keep it quiet and clean,” Steve promised.

“Uh, is my memory worse than usual, or did we pick up new friends?” Bucky asked.

“Well, funny story….”

“You and Darcy adopted more strays, didn’t you?”

“Darcy did most of it,” Steve defended. “I’m  _ not _ responsible for this.” 

Bucky laughed at the prompt passing of the blame and rolled his eyes. “Sure you aren’t. But why don’t you introduce me anyways?”

“Um, these are the Avengers,” Steve said, shifting so he could point them out. “That’s Iron Man, getting some sack time on the couch, Bruce is Hulk’s smaller and smarter half in the kitchen.”

Bruce looked up from his dish. “I hope your friend likes Ghonto. I’m not changing the recipe now.”

“What’s Ghonto?” Bucky asked him quietly.

“No idea. Food, I think.” Steve chuckled. “Can’t be worse than rations.”

Bucky nodded philosophically in agreement. “Too true, all too true.”

“It’s a thick stew of vegetables,” Bruce told them. “Steve, come taste this, I think I’m not using enough ginger, but I could have just acclimated to it when I was in Kolkata.” Steve, who of all of them, had the most sensitive pallet, came to accept a spoonful of stew. Bright flavors burst across his tongue.

“I have no idea what you’re doing, but it’s great, keep it up.”

“I told you,” Clint said from the cooling racks. “But you never listen.”

“Hey, cool it Clint, we all know you’re the American Homemaker Extraordinaire, but Bruce has a different skill set.” Steve sighed. How could the team’s marksman be such a fantastic shot, spy, cook, make-up artist, and STILL act like a teenager? “Bucky, that’s Clint, he’s Mad Jack’s upgrade.”

“Mad… oh no.  _ Please _ tell me crazy archer kilt guy is a figment of my shattered mind.”

“No can do, Zima. Mad Jack was real, and Clint’s favorite sniper of all time. He has a list.”

"Please don't ever tell me where I am on it, or if I am on it. And, those two are…”

“Thor and Loki,” Steve said. “Yes,  **those** Thor and Loki, although I’ve been told most of those stories came out of bad translating and drunkenness.”

“Except the dress, I did get Thor to wear Mother’s wedding gown once,” Loki said proudly.

“I’m not sure you should get that much happiness out of that,” Natasha said. Steve shook his head.

“Look at Thor, he’s not upset, so it was a fun-prank not a mean-prank.” Turning to Bucky he explained. “We’re working with Nat and Loki about moral guidelines.”

“And to be fair to my brother,” Thor said, wrapping an arm around Loki who only ignored it, “there was indeed drunkenness involved, just not Midgardian drunkenness. I had just become old enough to drink in the mead halls. Waking up to Mother’s fury and a large amount of laughter taught me not to over indulge again.”

“I wonder if I could fly Maria out to wake Tony up the next time he decides to self medicate,” Pepper mused. To move them away from that topic, Steve continued introductions.

“This is Pepper, she keeps Tony, Iron Man, alive and mostly functional when not in the suit.”

“Ma’am,” Bucky said while nodding politely. Steve pointed out Phil, working away on a tablet full of figures.

“And that’s Phil Coulson. He’s… complicated.”

“You just introduced me to Norse gods, Steve,” Bucky pointed out.

“And that should give you an idea of Phil,” Steve countered. Bucky looked unimpressed, twitching an eyebrow upwards. “He wears a lot of hats, okay? But he’s good people and he works with Darcy’s group.”

“Oh, well that’s good then. Nice to meet all of you. Darcy’s tugging, I need to do a ride-along. I guess I’ll see you soon?”

Steve got his lover onto a sofa and watched the muscles go slack.

<^>

Bucky had enjoyed meeting the Avengers, even if they were rather… odd. They still seemed pretty swell, and good company for his loves, especially with two of them working on the thin line Darcy had to dance on when she helped him. Right, wrong, it was all hard to determine when you’d made choices like she had. Sliding in beside Darcy, though, was a familiar pleasure. Her mind holding his like the hands they’d never held in real life.

_ What do you need Doll? _

_ They want to cut through the lobby, but we have people on five. All civilians, injured and medics. _

_ Fuck that. Do we have a better play? Tell me we have a better play. _

_ There’s a back loading bay that opens into a separate set of service stairs and elevators, but I don’t know how to tell them that. _

“Not the front, too messy. We would waste time. Building this size has service entrances. Easier access and fewer obstacles.”

“You’re a bit chatty today, Asset.”

And you’re a bit stupid, he thought to himself.  _ Doll, clear the back. _

“Ya khochu domoy. Let’s move.”

He led them to the back. He hunched over the keypad and grumbled in a blend of Russian, German, and Firefly Mandarin. He knew Darcy would be coordinating things so they didn’t run into anyone his leashes felt needed to be silenced, and he trusted her to let them in when the time was right.

The sliding garage doors opened right as one of the men at his back started complaining about how bad he was at hacking locks. He smiled under the mask. Even if it wasn’t the goal, it was amusing to watch the guy catch flack from his teammates about underestimating the Asset.

They slowly and silently worked their way up the stairs and he sighed a bit in relief when they passed the large number 5 on a door. Considering the building had a hundred floors, he focused on deep breaths that extended his endurance and relied on his augmented strength and speed to keep his pace only slightly above what his leashes could comfortably manage for more than ten or twenty flights of stairs. They managed to stay with him, but they weren’t happy about it, especially since Bucky didn’t stop. Even knowing that he couldn’t just ditch them, he wished they would speed up a bit. He wanted to hold Darcy in his arms and he couldn’t do that until he got to the top floor.

After what felt like forever, they got to the penthouse. He grabbed the handle of the security door, felt it unlock, and yanked hard, clearing the others to rush into a dark room that still smelled of the spicy vegetable stew and the sweet sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon of Clint’s snicker-doodles. He counted to fifty in Russian, then back down to zero in English, before entering the room.

“Darcy?” he called. She stepped into view, a shadow in blue with a red wing on her left shoulder. His brain caught. Tsel' missii. Orders: terminate. His hands brought up the weapon he should have already had out. He was malfunctioning, he hadn’t been prepared. Something burned at the back of his throat, disgust, failure. Fear slowed his reflexes as she moved in, pushing the gun away.

“Sputnik,” said a soft male voice he didn’t know.

He was out before he fully registered falling unconscious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Thirteen: Sharon Carter's Codename.  
> Byzantine: Phil Coulson's Codename.  
> Treasurer: Sitwell's Codename.  
> Back-filled alias: a cover that has a past and stands up to strong scrutiny.  
> Bear: a burly or overtly masculine gay man.  
> Ty moi missiya: you are my mission. (Russian)  
> Eto vremya, kotoryye pytayutsya chelovecheskiye dushi: these are the times that try men's souls. (Russian)  
> Cowgirl: a sex position with the woman on top.  
> TMI: "too much information", indicates you've just shared something your friends had no need to know.  
> Zima: Winter (Russian)  
> Pauk: Spider (Russian)  
> Chernaya Vdova: black widow (Russian.)  
> Ghonto: a traditional Kolkatan veggie stew.  
> Wears a lot of hats: to have many jobs or roles.  
> Ya khochu domoy: I want to go home. (Russian)
> 
> Notes:  
> One of the better ways to bring something huge down is to jam the minutiae of the operation. All those tiny "accidents" will get written off, but also slowly but surely demolish any effectiveness of the Sheildra operators. Paperwork is especially insidious as it is normally there to get you what you need.
> 
> The skull and crossbones symbol is usually used to indicate toxic nature. Brock Rumlow, however toxic he may be, is called Crossbones, both because that's his actual comic book villain name and because I wanted to crack a joke about his idiocy/emotional lack of depth.
> 
> Jane is using a code phrase to help Bucky-as-Darcy break any orders he might be carrying. This was done with his knowledge and exists mostly on Darcy's end, so the wipes don't super affect it. They picked a Russian translation of something super tied to American history (it's the opening of The Crisis, by Thomas Paine) so it would never get said in any other context.
> 
> Most Bengali cuisine does indeed use a lot of ginger. If you get used to it, it can be hard to tell if you aren't using enough, or if you've just adapted.
> 
> I know I brought Mad Jack Churchill up in the last one, but really guys, he was awesome, and holds the title of Last Known Kill in a War using a Welsh Longbow. He was insane, and very cool.
> 
> There is indeed a story in the Eddas where Loki does... something, I really can't remember, but to get out of trouble for it, he convinces Thor to dress up as a bride, using Frigga's wedding dress.
> 
> Sputnik was one of the safety codes implanted by the Red Room in the comics. It basically knocks him out and resets him to the last brainwashing. (Which did not involve the chair in the comics I don't think, but I'm using it that way.)
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “Your eating habits will kill me someday,” Natasha said.


	14. Memento

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy watches Tony dismantle the safety devices in Bucky's arm and engages in creative interrogation and debriefing.
> 
> Steve talks to his new friends about a variety of things, worries over Bucky, and has to use the Swear Jar.
> 
> The Soldier wakes up and Bucky remembers, in that order, but he's not exactly happy about that order.

Darcy took a mostly backseat position for the actual infiltration itself, using her own voice to tell Jarvis when to open certain security measures and letting everyone get in place on the now-darkened floor. Their eyes had adjusted to the darkness as Jarvis slowly brought the light intensity up in the stairwell, leaving the attackers night-blind and easy to disarm and disable. If she was a little too rough, well, at least her target didn’t stain the carpet, unlike the one Loki riddled with daggers.

Bucky aiming a gun at her probably shouldn’t have surprised her. At the least she shouldn’t have frozen like she did, a sick swirling in her gut as she got a look at her face, a pale phantom in the darkness, as the link snapped taught and dissipated as her mind took refuge in her own brain as his programming surged. He was just as off balance, though, based on how slow his movements were as she controlled and isolated his trigger hand. 

Thankfully, she’d given Phil a better tool than she could bring herself to use. A one-time-use safe-word code embedded in his psyche by the Soviets, a paralytic and knock-out. Jarvis eased the lights back up so they could tie up the remaining living attacker and disarm him. Steve winced as Jane turned on the zapper. Thor helped Darcy move Bucky to the sofa, then relocated the last Squid still breathing out of the room.

“We need to move fast, I don't know how long this will keep him under and there are a fuckton of nerves along that artery. Given what he does to painkillers, we should do what we can now. Tony? Do you have that kit ready?” she called as she pulled the metal arm up so she could better reach the access panel.

“Right here, Lewis, what do you need?”

“There’s an EMP in his arm that can be remote detonated. Aside from killing all the power in Manhattan, it disables the safety on a vial of something bad, dumping it into his blood. The access is under the star, here, but I never saw inside it.”

“I hate flying blind,” Tony muttered as he fumbled at the plate.

“Then don’t,” Natasha said. “I can get you in, but I never knew how to disable the workings.”

Darcy moved aside to let them work. She didn’t know she’d been chewing the edge of her thumb until Steve pulled her hand down and bandaged the raw spot. He held her, and everyone stayed quiet as the delicate work was done inside Bucky’s arm. The whole room took a collective breath when Tony handed Natasha the EMP, and everyone held it until the vial of murky fluid followed.

“Is that blood?” Pepper asked. The top was indeed smeared red.

“Yes, and I really need something to stop the bleeding here!” Tony said, strained. Bruce darted forward with a clear bottle, and Tony went back to work. A minute later, he closed the panel and stepped back. “Pep, antimicrobial spray?”

Pepper stepped up to spritz an astringent smelling fluid on his hands and give him a wet wipe to get the blood and grease off.

“He should be fine,” Natasha told Darcy and Steve.

“What was that stuff Doctor Banner gave Tony?” Steve asked.

“Superglue,” Bruce replied. “I know it sounds dumb, but it works.”

“Well, it was originally formulated as a battle-field substitute for stitches,” Phil said calmly.

“I’ve used it,” Clint said coming in with a shiny mesh box about the size of a shoe box. “I believe this is the Faraday cage you wanted, Tony. Who’s hungry?”

“Your eating habits will kill me someday,” Natasha said with an affected moue of disgust, but Steve’s stomach rumbled, so they got back to their somewhat delayed dinner. Darcy couldn’t honestly say she tasted it, which was a shame, Bruce was a really good cook. But her mind was too focused on Bucky, waiting for him to wake up. She noticed Steve eating somewhat mechanically, and figured he was also worried.

“Okay, I have to do something, or I’m going to go crazy,” she told the group. “Thor, where did you put the Squid?”

“In the bath,” Thor said around a bit of stew. “You mentioned once they would soak your Bucky Barnes in cold water as a punishment for failure. As these wretches failed in their plans, it seemed… appropriate.”

“That approaches cleverness, Thor,” Loki remarked. Darcy whapped him with her napkin and gave him a warning look.

“Phil, you got the list of safe-words that Treasurer gave us, right?” she asked.

“Yes. I’m still not sure how you managed to get him undercover, but yes, I have it.”

She hadn’t, but she wasn’t telling Phil that. It was Treasurer’s lookout if he wanted to explain how he ended up a double agent.

“Good, if Bucky goes Soldier and needs any of them, use the one-shots first, try not to use a reactivating one, and don’t abuse it, okay? I’ll be in the bathroom with our new buddy.”

“We’ll take good care of him, Darcy, go do what you need to,” Pepper said kindly. 

“Can you try to avoid blood-stains on the marble?” Tony asked.

“What do I look like, an amateur?” Darcy asked, mock offended.

“Of course not, you look like a woman in pain," Pepper shot back. "That tends to go with blood stains, I’ve found. And I walked in on enough scandals of Tony’s to know he has the same associations. If you need self-heating eyelash curlers, there’s a pair and some cleanser in a box under the sink. I think the iron is in the hall closet.”

“Thanks Pepper, you’re the best.”

<^>

Steve wasn’t sure what it said about him that he was so happy that their team was so helpful to Darcy in her need to torture a man. He wasn’t sure what it said about them that they were in fact that helpful. And he had no idea how self-heating eyelash curlers worked or why Darcy would want them in an interrogation. He had a few too many ideas about how the iron would be used, and wasn’t sure he should be that… creative in the matter. He was sure he was worried about Bucky. He nearly jammed a spoonful of stew into his cheek when Bucky groaned on the sofa.

“Relax, Steve,” Jane said from the end of the table, where her leg was up to one side in its cast. “He hardly ever got real sleep, he’s just fine napping. Eat. At your metabolic rates, you need at least a third helping.”

“And besides,” Phil said, “it’s rude not to appreciate the work Bruce and Clint put into dinner and desert.” He sounded so much like Steve’s Ma, that Steve automatically felt bad about how blandly he’d reacted to the food.

“It is really good, Bruce. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten anything like it. Where’d you learn?”

“Kolkata, I was hiding there when Nat recruited me. Good food, very different approach to seasonings than Western cuisine. It’s all opposing forces, sweet and spicy, sour and bitter, that kind of thing.” He looked lost in thought. “You know, it’s a bit like a chemical formula. I bet we could do a chemical analysis of the top masala ingredients and figure out the best mix based on pH values and protein and saccharide complexity.”

“No doing Science at the dinner table, Bruce,” Jane reminded him. “Besides, we don’t have a functional lab for chemistry yet, and you promised Darcy not to do any more experiments until we get Doctor Ross back, remember?”

“Okay, that’s fair. I can wait. Besides, I’m really liking working with the clean-up crews. You guys should give it another shot,” he said, nodding to where Loki and Tony were sitting.

“Uh-uh, no way. You are my Science Bro and I love you, but no. Do you remember last time? I got mobbed by the press and those girls who dress up like me that hang out around the Tower. One of them had a really impressive chest-plate.”

“Tony…” Pepper said warningly.

“I meant that on a technical level, Pep! It was very realistic! I wanted to give her my card so I could snag her for R and D, but I know what everyone would say, and I didn’t want to do that to her.”

“What would everyone say?” Loki asked, probably to avoid mention of his own, ill-advised attempt to help with the rebuilding, which ended rather abruptly when he used seidr to get a wedged beam shifted off a man, and people began muttering about mutants.

“That she exchanged sex with me for a good job,” Tony told him bluntly. “The press can get nasty. I used to be a total slut, and they like making it seem like that’s the women’s fault. Only now, it means I can’t even hire a woman without five layers of buffer, despite there being some fantastic women in the field. I really wish I could tell Past Me not to do that, it’s put a huge dent in the new hires I make and I do not like losing good talent to the likes of OsCorp.”

Thor and Loki exchanged a look. “I do not understand,” Thor said. “On Asgard, should a pair decide to partake in bed-sport, it means nothing of a trade. And any who protested should one recommend another to a post, based on possible past relation would be laughed from the room.”

“Tony,” Pepper said very seriously. “For our anniversary, I want to go to Asgard for a week.”

“I’ll see if I can work that out with Thor, Babe.”

“Is that screaming?” Steve asked, the sounds faint but noticeable. He hoped the soundproofing on their room was better than the stuff on the bathroom.

“That’s Darcy at work,” Natasha said.

“Huh? What? Darcy? Gde ona? Gde ya?” said a voice from the couch.

“Get Darcy,” Steve said, as he bolted from the table to support Bucky.

<^>

He came awake slowly, long held instinct keeping his breathing easy as he listened to his captors. They discussed chemical compounds and mobs and Asgard. A very familiar voice asked about the faint sounds of torture coming from another wall. Then another familiar voice said “Darcy”. He didn’t fully know what it meant, just that it was vitally important, that she was vitally important. It over-rode the careful deception and he sat up, demanding what they knew of her, where she was, for that matter, where he was.

“Ona v vannaya, Zima,” a redhead who felt familiar said. Black Widow, deadly in hand-combat, resourceful, skilled at espionage. Mission Orders: Kill. There was no way to do that with her compatriots beside her.

“She’s working, but I know she’d want to see you. I’ll get her,” offered the man beside her in a ruffled purple apron. Hawkeye, skilled marksman, highly rated in hand to hand, willing to use unorthodox weapons. Mission Orders: Kill. He disappeared and the first familiar voice spoke again, a tall, strong man. Captain America, super human strength, speed, agility, and uses a shield as a weapon. Mission Orders: Kill.

“Bucky, do you know who we are?”

“Black Widow, Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye just left. Some civilians.”

“You have no clue who we are,” Captain America said, but he didn’t sound angry about it. It wasn’t defensive, it was… sad? Of course the way he pulled his hair and started swearing looked a lot more like anger or frustration.

“Captain Rogers,” said a voice from nowhere that made him jump. “You asked me to remind you of the Swear Jar Protocol.”

“Aw rats. Okay, um, put in a week of dish duty please.”

“Of course, Captain Rogers.”

“Who was that?” the Asset asked cautiously. So far, they didn’t seem to realize he was a threat. If he could keep that going, he could find a way to complete his mission.

“Jarvis. He’s… hard to explain. No, Tony.” The Captain pointed behind him at Iron Man, no suit, but the briefing had been very clear to assume he had high technical weapons capacity at all times.

“I didn’t say anything!”

“I can tell when you’re about to speak Science, and it’s very disorienting, even for me. Bucky’s still having problems.”

“Who’s Bucky?” the Asset asked. The Captain looked like he might cry, and the Asset wondered if there wasn’t an overlooked superpower hidden under the more obvious ones, since his chest was clenching under the weight of that sadness.

“Okay, so why was I hauled out of an interrogation by a man in a frilly purple apron? I don’t need my team undermining my credibility… Bucky? James?” Darcy Lewis. Conflicting knowledge hit his mind, a dossier, a large man unconscious in garbage. A photo of rage, a song about sky.

“He doesn’t know us, Angel.”

“He will,” Darcy said, her eyes lighting with a determination that froze him with something between fear and delight. “Jane, I’m initiating a download, I don’t have time for the hat. Sorry.”

“Get your man back. We can do that later.”

She looked in his eyes, a soft hand on his face, her red lips turned into what might be a smile if her eyes didn’t hold so much hurt. Knowledge flooded his mind. She was there beside him. He felt tears on his face.

_ Welcome home, Bucky. _

_ I… there’s so much. _

_ You gave me what was important when it was going to be lost.  _ A flash of fear and the Chair. _ I kept it safe, and now it’s yours again. You’re free. _

_ They took the sky.  _ A refrain of violin music played between them.

_ I took it back. Really Bucky, you know me, I don’t give up what’s mine without a fight. I love you. _

_ I love you too. _

_ And Steve loves you. _

_ And I love Steve… and…  _ Bodies sliding against one another, love and passion and a jerk and a punk planning to  **make** the world accept them. _ I didn’t think I gave you that one. _

_ You didn’t. It’s Steve’s. He gave me a few like that to pass on when you were low. _

_ A jolt of memento… _

_ Yeah. There are a few of mine in there too. _

A uniform, a newspaper ad, a kiss.

_ And we can… now, I mean. _

_ Yes, we so totally can. As much as you want. But you have to come home to us. _

_ What? _

_ Where are our arms? _

The two were locked in struggle, one hand of hers pinning his flesh hand as the other levered room on her neck in a losing battle with the metal. He relaxed everything, she slumped back into Steve.

“Dollface, I’m so sorry. I… I shouldn’t be here.” He stood to go and Hawkeye, Clint pushed him down with one hand. His face was stern and hard, at odds with the ruffled purple apron.

“If you run out on them after the absolute hell they went through getting you back, I will pincushion you with arrows until you look like a voodoo doll with a metal arm, asshole.”

“This collection is quite aware of what it is to be controlled,” Loki said coldly. “We, as your Lady Darcy puts it, _ dealt. _ If you cannot, you are not a worthy mate to my Shadow Sister and I shall take great pride in putting you out of her misery.”

“Dude, did you just give the most feared assassin on the planet the shovel talk?” Darcy asked, her voice rough.

“I believe you gave similar to my brother, who is regarded as a god. Why are you less deserving of this warning to a suitor than Seidkonur Foster?”

“Fair point. But if he runs, be aware I will chase his ass down  _ myself _ to preform percussive maintenance on his dumb self-loathing issues. I’ll tap you in if and only if I need assistance.”

“Understood, Shadow Sister.”

“So, anyway, Bucky, meet the new fam. I got adopted.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> EMP: Electromagnetic pulse.  
> Flying blind: Feel one's way, proceed by guesswork without instructions or a map.  
> Faraday cage: a box that blocks incoming or outgoing wireless signals.  
> pH values: the acid to base scale.  
> Saccharides: the basis of all sugars.  
> Gde ona? Gde ye?- Where is she? Where am I? (Russian.)  
> Ona v vannaya, Zima.- She is in the bathroom, Zima. (Russian.)  
> Seidkonur- Female of Seidmadr, the title Loki uses for Doctors of the non-medical kind. (Asgardian.)
> 
> Notes:  
> Superglue, or an older version, was originally made for use as 'liquid stitches' in battle zones when you didn't have time for proper stop and stitch it shut sutures.
> 
> Eyelash curlers are scary tools to crimp eyelashes into a curl with pressure, heat, or both, and the self heating ones are almost more scary, despite safety precautions. 
> 
> The girl with the impressive chest plate was totally Skye.
> 
> This is a pink version of Clint's apron: https://secure.img.wfrcdn.com/lf/49/hash/6890/2549493/1/Flirty-Aprons-Womens-Apron-in-Chic-Pink-WO-10006.jpg
> 
> A Swear Jar is usually a jar everyone in the household has to put some amount of money into if they cuss, but as this is a mix of people and only Steve is really trying to quit, he has Jarvis sign him up for more chores when he swears.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “You’re a sap, Rogers.”  
> “You’re the guy who fell for a sap, so what does that make you?”  
> “The bug in the amber that helped the crazy guy make dinosaurs in that one movie.”


	15. Shatter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy handles complicated emotions, sparring, a shared fear of falling, and Bucky's guilt.
> 
> Steve sees a new side to Darcy's pain, learns something from Bucky, and shares a movie.
> 
> Bucky sees how much Darcy is hurting and goes on a massive guilt trip that ends in a kiss.

Darcy could admit in her own mind she  _ had _ run into that situation a little too fast. She had known Sputnik was a shutdown code, she hadn’t known it was a reset. When he went for her throat even as she poured memories of love into his mind, she had only a moment to wave everyone back and wedge a few fingers between her carotid and his hand. The other hand was held with a nerve lock weakening his push-back as she tried to get him to remember. 

Bucky thrashed, his body trying to evade her as she poured his self back into his head. She had saved all of this for him. She had gone through hell, for him, for them, for the love they shared. She had burned and bled and taken scars on her soul for the very thing he seemed to be fighting not to receive.

It was tempting to just choke out another command and forget it. Walk away. He had Steve and she could go have a normal life. Pretend to be just another political science major, or even dedicate herself full time to HERO, but not deal with the messy emotional strife swirling around her. It would be so easy, and she knew even as she adjusted her position to more firmly pin the super soldier beneath her that nobody would blame her for it.

That was the easy way out, though, and Darcy Lewis never gave up without a fight.

Seeing his guilty look as she rubbed the forming bruises, she realized, this, this was what had worried Jane so badly about her episodes. Not the blankness, not the pain, not the crying or the screaming. The guilt. Clint and Loki stepping up just made the point a little clearer than she maybe wanted. She had to let go of her guilt to get Bucky to let go of his.

After another round of introductions, again explaining how she got two Norse gods as brothers, and learning Bucky couldn’t keep the stew down, she brought a nutritional shake to him in the non-interrogation bathroom where Steve was helping him get rejected food out of his hair with one of the hand-held shower heads.

“It’s still nutrient sludge, but it’s chocolate flavored. Sort of a step up, I guess. We’ll look into how to work you back onto real food.”

Bucky took it without a word, but after a sip became a gulp and she slowed him down, he smiled. It was awkward, like he had forgotten how. “Thanks, Doll. I don’t want to be too much of a bother.”

“James Buchanan Barnes, you stop that nonsense this instant, you hear me?” she snapped. The tensions of the day made her harsher than intended, and his eyes flew wide. “You are not a bother, not ever.” 

“I can’t eat normal food and that’s not going to be the end of it,” he pointed out. “Until I can pull my own weight….”

“Nothing I do to help you is a bother, a burden, or any other idiotic, self-flagellating, untrue, moronic noun that might be running through that pretty head of yours. They are MY choices and I’m the only one who gets to make them. I will not give you up without a fight, whether I’m fighting a freaking Kraken of Squid-Nazis, or your own shell shock.” She looked at his shocked face and noticed the finger she’d been poking him with was trembling. “I need to go. Steve?”

“I’ve got him, Angel, you go. Take Loki or Clint with you.”

She nodded and stalked out into the common room. She pressed her shaking hand harder into her leg before clearing her throat.

“Loki, you want to go do some sparring?” she asked far too casually. She saw not only Loki, but Nat and Clint look up at her. It was hard not to flinch away from the understanding in their eyes, the feeling of being seen.

“It would be a pleasure, Shadow Sister.”

“If you guys don’t mind, Nat and I need to get back in the habit. We haven’t sparred in a while,” Clint said, although everyone knew by ‘a while’ he meant ‘since she beat me unconscious when I tried to kill her’. Nat looked uncomfortable, but stiffly nodded.

“I should probably tag along, too,” Phil said casually. “I haven’t done a proper evaluation of Barton’s hand to hand in a month. There is paperwork, you know.”

“We know!” chorused everyone there. Phil’s love of a good form was a running joke and everyone needed to laugh badly enough that it didn’t need to be a good joke.

They got off the elevator on the one floor of Stark Tower to take any significant damage. The debris from where a Chitauri speeder had run through the cube farm formed a nicely realistic sparring ground for the asymmetric styles the four of them preferred.

Darcy took on three Loki-clones of varying solidity. Part of the challenge for her was figuring out which one she could ignore and which she had to hit. Part of the challenge for him was directing multiple copies in different actions simultaneously while also keeping her on her toes and not hitting the most solid copy, which relayed the pain to him. The fights were normally creative, fast, and athletic. This one was direct, sloppy, and came to an abrupt halt when her shaking fist slammed into open air and she overbalanced a touch too close to the open hole where a window had been shattered.

Clint dodged Nat just in time to run and grab Darcy’s arm. He and Loki pulled her back from the hole in the wall. Darcy was shaking and keening through clenched teeth. Natasha pet her hair and sang an eerie Russian lullaby. When she stopped her muffled scream, Darcy looked up to see Phil had brought her a pillow. When she hugged it to her chest it smelled of Steve.

“I took the liberty, in case you happened to need it.”

“Stalker,” she said into the pillow.

“With the best intentions. You’ve had a lot happen. Not just today, although I imagine having Bucky back is causing more distress than normal.” Phil gave a small, soft smile. “We can all use some contact comfort when we’re distressed.”

“But I love him,” Darcy said, frowning in confusion.

“Yes, and because you love him, you put yourself through a lot of pain. It’s hard to sort out what hurts from what you feel about him.”

“Can we move away from the ledge? I hate falling.” She knew they all saw the deflection for what it was, but Loki scooped her up and carried her like a kid back to the elevator.

“I hate falling too,” he told her.

“Falling sucks bilgesnipe balls,” she replied solemnly and he smiled at her. “I never asked, why do you make the sparring clones with blue eyes?”

“Because I am making opponents for you. I am not your enemy now, but then… I am very glad you are my brother’s Lightning Sister.”

“Hey Nat?” Clint asked from her other side. “If I wear color contacts will you feel better fighting me?”

“I… maybe? I’m not used to this feeling. Guilt. I don’t like it and it hampers my ability,” she admitted lowly.

“I’ll order a box of electric blue and one of brown,” Coulson said, making a note. “We can see if the blue works, and if it doesn’t we can try brown, for a totally different look. We’ll figure it out.”

“If it helps any, Lady Natasha, I was very happy to be freed, even though it was painful and made accessing my seidr difficult for a while afterwards.”

“I’ve already told her I was glad she did it, Loki. It’s… different.” Clint looked at the red head beside him. “It’s harder to accept that you hurt someone you… care for. Even if you didn’t want to.”

Darcy understood that. Suddenly, like the lightning Thor named her after, she understood Bucky a little more. “Especially if you didn’t want to, Clint. I need to go see Bucky.”

<^>

Steve had honestly never seen Darcy as furious as when she told Bucky off for one simple word. It was terrifying. He’d seen that rage before, but it had always been controlled, directed, safe, for him at least, because he had never been the target. This was raw and unchained, and when she left, he instinctively pulled Bucky closer.

“I’ve never seen… she doesn’t… I’m sure she didn’t mean to be so…” he gave up trying to explain it.

“You haven’t. I have,” Bucky said quietly. “Not, not with Darcy, but with Natalia, I think. They sent her to kill for the first time and she came back… different. She’d killed before, of course, to desensitize her to it, but in a controlled space. I don’t know what her mission was, but she came back covered in blood and everything about her was… sharp, brittle, like broken glass. Darcy had to talk her down. She told Natalia “ne sravnit' shramy”, do not compare scars.” 

Steve frowned. “But why… Darcy hasn’t killed anyone she’d feel bad about killing… why would….”

“She’s hurting, but she feels bad about being the one to hurt.” Bucky looked up at him. “She’s going to be fire and a thousand shards of broken glass until she can learn to take her own advice, and we can’t really stop that. Loki and Clint, they’ll help?”

“They have the closest set of experiences to call on when it comes to doing things you regret, and they are both totally loyal to her.”

“Good. Priyatno slyshat', ona nuzhdayetsya v tom, chto.”

“I don’t speak Russian, Buck.”

“Was I… oh. Sorry.” He hung his head and Steve tipped his chin up.

“I don’t mind it, really, if I have to, I’ll learn. I just wanted to make sure you were aware that what you were saying wasn’t understood. I always want to be able to listen when you tell me things.”

“You’re a sap, Rogers.”

“You’re the guy who fell for a sap, so what does that make you?”

Bucky pulled a thoughtful face. “The bug in the amber that helped the crazy guy make dinosaurs in that one movie.”

“You watched Jurassic Park?”

“With Jane, when Darcy took one of my missions. It was pretty good, I kinda thought the Raptors worked like the Howlies, you know?”

“There are sequels, you get to them?”

“No, not really, the mission was short on that end, only one movie and I think I missed the very end bit. They were ready to leave and stuff, but I swapped out before they actually left the island.”

“You wanna go watch them?”

“Yeah, fake blood makes the real stuff not as upsetting. Does the sequel have another annoying person who dies because they were dumb?”

“No spoilers.”

<^>

Darcy came in during the middle of the third Jurassic Park movie, and Bucky tried to hide his grimace at the ugly purple marks on her neck. Marks he put there. He would have moved away, but Steve had fallen asleep on his lap, and it seemed… wrong to wake him.

“Hey,” she said, aiming for casual and missing by a mile. His gut churned with the awkwardness the conversation they had to have would be filled with.

“Hi.” 

_ Oh, nice, that’s a real good way to greet the dame who risked her own life to give you back your soul, _ he thought.

“I’m sorry about yelling,” she said, and he wanted to interrupt, but she stopped him. “I don’t like your guilt issues, because I don’t agree that you did something to warrant them. But I’d be a huge hypocrite if I told you that you couldn’t have them. I know a thing or two about feeling I hurt someone important to me, or feeling like dead weight, and it sucks. But I personally want to move past that. I hope you’ll be on that road too, I prefer not being alone.”

“Dollface, you scolded me, I put  _ bruises _ on you. But, if you still want me beside you, that’s where I’ll be. Well, when the punk here wakes up.”

Darcy lifted Steve’s feet and sat under them. “Oh good, the Aviary is coming up, I love this part.” And as simple as that, he knew she forgave him. That was the thing about Darcy, she would never give up, not even on lost causes. Which probably made Steve and him the luckiest men on the planet.

As the Raptor parents took back their eggs, she slid a hand over and twined her fingers with his metal hand. It didn’t have great sense-input, it was a weapon more than a prosthetic, but the feeling of her hand pressing back on the more sensitive trigger receptor made him happy. She must have seen that, since she gave it a languid stroke that made his heart race. Darcy was the special kind of crazy, to treat it that way, and God did he love her for it. 

After the credits, he helped her sleepwalk Steve to their room, with an enormous bed, and get him into sleep pants and a fresh shirt before tucking him in.

“He’s so sweet when he’s sleeping,” she commented.

“Yeah, he’s a real treat, except when he’s awake.”

“You know, I do believe the subject of a kiss was discussed?” she asked him, looking up shyly through thick dark lashes. “You want to revisit that topic now, or later?”

“Both, as often as you want to, Doll.” She popped up on tip-toe to peck chastely at his mouth. “I don’t think that really counts.”

“You get to kiss me, if you can catch me!” she said and ran down a hall. He caught up with her and lifted her by the backside up against a wall to kiss her properly. She was warm and soft and wonderfully willing beneath his touch, wrapping her arms around his neck and meeting his hunger with her own.

He pulled back when a draft from a cracked window or vent brushed his neck.  _ The tube, the cryo, the cold showers, and before that the bite of Siberian air that never really faded.  _ He put her down gently and backed up.

“I… it’s like it’s all real… or is this not real.”

“Everything is only as real as you make it,” she told him. “Remind me to introduce you to the Matrix movies. I’m exhausted, let’s go convince Steve to share.”

Tucked between them, Steve’s arm acting as a second pillow and Darcy’s lower body acting as a second blanket, he thought this? This was definitely worth fighting for. The Squids would never know what hit them, until it was too late, because he was no summer soldier, and this right here was something he would always protect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations  
> Priyatno slyshat', ona nuzhdayetsya v tom, chto: good to hear, she needs that.
> 
> Notes  
> The carotid arteries are major blood vessels in the neck that supply blood to the brain, neck, and face. There are two carotid arteries, one on the right and one on the left. If they both become blocked, oxygen will stop entering the brain, and after ten seconds, the person will pass out. Protecting the carotids is an important part of fighting back against a strangling move.
> 
> People who have been starved, or put on liquid or intravenous nutrients tend to vomit if they go for real food too soon.
> 
> A lot of people recovering from trauma, physical or mental, tend to see the care they are given as "being a burden" even if the care is freely offered. It can be hard on caretakers to hear that, especially if, like Darcy, they are also recovering.
> 
> Phil is not going to do paperwork, he's there to be an emotional spotter, because everyone can see Darcy is on some kind of edge, and Nat and Clint have their own issues in a sparring environment.
> 
> Nat is singing Tili Tili Bom, the song that Soldier had in his head earlier. It was one of the few approved songs in the Red Room. Here's a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDMmj5WgB8c
> 
> The Raptors in the first Jurassic Park movie do indeed employ hunting methods that are similar to the attack patterns of tightly coordinated military squads. Jurassic World has not come out yet at this point in canon or there would be a huge debate about which Howlie was most like which Raptor.
> 
> Fake blood, no matter how well done, is almost always easy to spot from real if you have seen a lot of real blood. Not all vets like movies with fake blood, but I do know a few who find it funny and it helps them.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “Either we’re opening a bakery, which would be epic, or you have a problem. Your problems are my problems, Clint, you’re on my team. Spill.”


	16. Drag

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From entertainment to personal lives to saving the world, the best way to do it is Fabulously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to Sister Ultra Brocade, who has moved on to become a Nun of the Above. You are making the Above a more beautiful place, and we here carry on the fight.  
> https://www.facebook.com/COFSisters/posts/2525238341104751

Darcy woke up to find she’d somehow migrated into the middle of a super-soldier sandwich. Not that she would ever complain about that, but she knew she’d fallen asleep beside Bucky, with Steve opposite, and neither of them moved in their sleep much, which meant….

“Bucky?” she whispered at the mop of brown hair nuzzled into her boob.

“Yeah?” he responded as he looked up with sleepy blue eyes.

“Did you move me?”

“Yeah, you were talking in your sleep about bein’ cold, so I helped you shift over me. Warmer now?”

“Yes. Maybe too warm. You two are like furnaces, you know that right? Fleming thinks it’s your body’s increased metabolism from the serum, you burn all those calories you have to eat and like anything that burns, you get hot.”

“I feel like there’s a joke in there about what I looked like before the serum,” Steve said on her other side.

“You told me the serum only amplified what was already there, sexy,” Darcy said. “Good becomes great, and the fun-size hotness becomes a jumbo-size USDA Prime beefcake. I thought you were hot even when your hands were always frickin’ cold. And from some of the stuff you gave me for Bucky, I’d say he agreed.”

“Absolutely. The sexiest punk in all of Brooklyn, and there were a lot of them. Steve ever tell you about the time he did a cabaret performance?”

“No and I feel that was an egregious oversight. Captain Rogers, what do you have to say for yourself?” she mock-demanded, sitting up and crossing her arms under her breasts, which, despite the fact he’d played with them quite a lot just last morning, still made him turn bright red.

“It was real cute, wasn’t it Steve?” Bucky prodded. “In that pink get-up and the wig…”

“I was in the chorus, and I was only filling in because Leslie had a black eye, alright! It’s not like I was a star,” he protested.

“And suddenly so much of how good you were at makeup during your USO tour makes more sense,” Darcy said nodding. “I thought that the cat's eye you did on Jill looked very RuPaul.”

“Who’s RuPaul?” both men asked. Darcy blinked. 

“Okay, we need to fix this, to the Entertainment Center!”

She got them changed into comfortable clothing, stashed on the couch with blankets, and asked Jarvis to play a marathon of RuPaul’s Drag Race before going to prepare popcorn. She found Clint in the kitchen with five cooling racks of baked goods and a batch of something in pie tins in the oven. From that abundance of treats and the stress etched into his face, she could tell he was not happy.

“Okay, Sir Shoots-a-lot, what’s wrong?” she asked, putting two bags of microwave popcorn in the industrial sized machine.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he lied. It was a good lie, but his eyes didn’t quite sell it, so he must not have been trying all that hard.

“Either we’re opening a bakery, which would be epic, or you have a problem. Your problems are my problems, Clint. You’re on my team. Spill.”

“I feel useless, okay?” he said, slapping an oven mitt on the counter before hopping up to sit beside it. “I can’t be on the Heracles Burn team because I ditched my cover, I can’t spar with Nat, I can barely get Nat to even talk to me. Who am I if I can’t be an Agent or a friend, or a… you know what, never mind.”

“I think I will mind, and you can’t stop me, Barton.” Darcy tapped the com she’d taken to wearing. “Romanov, I need a stat on Barton STAP.” She slid the switch that made it come out her phone and set her phone to speaker. She laid it on the counter as she switched the popcorn out.

“Barton is in… svyataya mat' Bozhe. No, this isn’t happening, this can’t happen again, no. I’ll find him, I swear, if I have to track him down to Budapest, I swear I will.”

“Nat, NAT!” Darcy called into the static.

“I can’t lose him again,” came a tiny little voice she would never associate with the Black Widow if she hadn’t known her when she was five years old and having nightmares.

“Then go to the kitchen and tell him that, glupaya devchonka! My popcorn is ready; I want this sorted out before I get to season three’s finale.” She smiled as she passed Nat in the hall, her with four packs of microwave popcorn in a punch bowl and Nat at a dead sprint.

“You seem chipper,” Bucky remarked as she sat down and passed him the bowl.

“Our little spider is all grown up and having  _ feelings _ about  _ boys. _ Well, a boy,” she told him smugly. “She takes after you in the eleventh hour declarations department.”

“Who do I get to threaten?”

“Clint, you know, the one who already threatened to use you as a dartboard if you ran out on me?” Darcy raised a brow at him. “Don’t worry, I’ll do the shovel talk.”

“But she’s my girl, shouldn’t the Papa do that?”

“What century is it again?” she asked. “I know you’re the one with memory problems but I felt a distinct draft of 1950’s sexism in here.”

“Okay, fine.”

“Good thing you got that settled,” Steve said, “They’re going to be lip-syncing for their lives, so shush.”

<^>

Steve decided he really liked this RuPaul character. She was utterly glamorous and also very scary in those amazing gowns and big hairdo’s but also sassy and take-charge when in a suit. And he liked the little cuts where the Queens talked about themselves and why they wore what they wore and how the contest was impacting them, and what they’d do if they won all that stuff. He grabbed a tablet to look up more on drag queens during the breaks between seasons when Darcy went to make more popcorn.

“Wow, hey Bucky, did you know there are drag nuns?”

“Wait, what now?”

“The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, they minister to folks who don’t get a lot of good options because they’re queer, and they stand up to bullies who say the same stuff that got said to me. They have a Queer Army to fight Homophobia and they perform and pass out free condoms. Technically, they’re heretics, but honestly… if this is heretical, Jesus might be a heretic.”

“You gonna join?” Bucky teased him, but it was a real smile.

“Nah, I still got that fear of nuns from back when they whacked us with the rulers. Besides, I don’t have a good face for a wimple.”

“And you might have to take a vow of chastity, and I just can’t allow that,” Bucky said as Darcy came in.

“Why might Steve of the uber stamina have to go chaste? I think that might be against the law or something,” Darcy said. “If not it should at least be against house rules.”

“There are drag nuns, Angel. But I’m not joining and besides, at the bottom of the webpage it says “Go forth and sin some more!” See?” He passed the tablet over and stole the popcorn. “Pretty sure that means they don’t take vows of celibacy.”

“Their founder’s name is Sister Vicious Power Hungry Bitch,” Darcy said. “I like her already. Next season?”

“Yeah!” he and Bucky said together.

At the end of the latest season, Bucky yawned. “Tired Buck?” Steve asked his long-time fella.

“Yeah, no idea why though.”

“You didn’t get much real sleep with… them,” Darcy said. “If you want to nap, go on, I have the watch and I’ll wake you for dinner, Jarvis had smoothie supplies delivered so I can make you something more food-like to eat.”

“M’kay,” Bucky said, yawning. “You’ve got the watch. Will anyone mind if I nap here, or should I go back to our room?”

“Either is fine, our room has more privacy, but here has the added benefit of being close enough to be in a maximum five point seven three second response time of anyone in shouting distance,” Steve said. He wanted Bucky to know the team would defend him. “We all watch each other’s six, so the family areas are all pretty close.”

“I don’t wanna move.”

“Okay,” Darcy said, kissing him gently. “You don’t have to. We got you.”

With Bucky snoring lightly under three blankets, Darcy and Steve took a moment to just hold each other, taking comfort in his safety. Then she pulled him out into the hall to talk without waking Bucky.

“Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“We got him back.”

“You got him back, Angel,” Steve told her. “I’m just lucky the three of us are a package deal.”

“I could stop now; I could leave it at inconveniencing them and forget fighting. We could ask Matt to lobby for your back pay and buy a house and live like normal people. We could be happy like that, right?”

“Angel, I know you,” he said with a chuckle. “You’re gonna be ninety four, and I’ll be a hundred and sixty four, and Buck will be a hundred and sixty five, and you’ll still want to fight. There’s always going to be a cause for you. I know that, and I made my peace with that back when I thought I was going to be geriatric when we finally met.”

“You’re one to talk Mr. I Don’t Like Bullies,” she countered, scrunching her nose and poking his chest lightly.

“And if Bucky can make his peace with my forever fight against bullies, he can make his peace with your need to right all the wrongs you can get your hands on,” Steve said, catching her hand to kiss her fingertips. “We are never gonna be normal people, Angel, and I think that’s the best thing ever. Can you imagine how utterly horrible living with me would be if I acted like those silly cartoons of me, all red-blooded American Man who stands for Freedom and punches out Communists and is constantly saving my almost always blonde helpless dame? Those are terrible cartoons.”

Darcy laughed. “Yeah, for one, I don’t do ‘helpless’ and I am not getting my hair bleached, so we’d have to contract out for that job, and I seem to remember you voted Socialist, so… it would be a bit hypocritical to punch Communists.”

“Exactly,” Steve said, giving her a hug. 

<^>

Dinner for Bucky was a smoothie, a tasty blended thing that vaguely reminded him of a milkshake, but not cold. He drank it while everyone else was eating various types of egg pie. Quiches, Jacques had called them. Barton apparently made more than just cookies. 

In the lull between food and desert - cookies for those not on a liquid diet and apple jello pie for Bucky - Darcy asked a question.

“Do you think we could get the team to go upstate or out somewhere with very few people to train for a week?”

“Why?” he asked. He’d learned sudden topic diversions usually meant her devious side was working.

“The second stage of Heracles Burn will work better if we’re not here,” she explained. “It’s a cyber-attack, and after trying and failing to kill Tony Stark, who do you think will be suspect number one?”

“Me,” Tony offered. “But I could still do a cyber-attack even if I were stranded, and I don’t know why we don’t want them thinking I did it. It’s not like I haven’t made my stance on attacking me in my home clear.”

“I kinda don’t want them coming back for round two yet,” Darcy explained. “We still have to decide a treatment plan for Bucky and get our teamwork solidified before we can take them on in a full frontal assault. If they think you’re the cause of Phase Two, they’ll come here to stop it.

“What about being wounded?” Clint said, coming in with Natasha and the trays of desserts. The two spies stood a little closer than before, and Bucky could see the slight pink undertone of a blush on her cheeks. “If we make it look like it sorta worked, and we’re taking you into hiding for recuperation, you can’t possibly be running as complex an attack as Scene Two. It’s a doozy.”

“How do I look sorta dead, Barton?” Tony challenged, but it was less anger and more snark. Bucky didn’t know them well, but he assumed it was like Morita and Dugan, a relationship built on sass and eye rolls.

“You don’t, I do,” Loki said, tapping the side of his nose. He transformed his appearance into a replica of Tony, right down to the wrinkled Black Sabbath tee and the grease stain on his left knee. Slowly he added wear and tear, and a cut on his head that was followed by a bandage. “So long as you make no appearance,” he said in Tony’s voice, “I can maintain this charade for the time you require.”

“Not if you talk like that,” Bruce pointed out. “You don’t move anything like Tony, and if I’m following this whole thing correctly, you’ll have to fool highly trained spies. They’ll smell a fake faster than you can blink.

“He could be comatose,” Pepper offered. “That’s the only time Tony isn’t actually capable of destroying things.”

“I’d claim slander, but she’s right,” Tony said, gesturing with a fork until Clint removed it from his hand and replaced it with a large double chocolate cookie.

“Okay,” Steve said, “Loki will be the Tony we just barely saved from a group of unknown assailants and we can give him to SHIELD’s medical team while the rest of us ‘track down leads’ somewhere that doesn’t have fame for its computer science. Can you trick the medical staff into thinking they are seeing what they should with Tony injured?”

“Obviously,” Loki said with disdain.

“Good, Phil, can you manufacture a lead for us to follow in Montana or somewhere?”

“Yes, but it won’t sound good coming from me, should I pass it to Treasurer?”

“No,” Darcy said. “He’s risked a lot lately; give it to Triple-Threat to pass on to Bionic. It’s why we had them paired up, remember. He’s pretty good at the misinformation game.”

“On it. You do realize this means we’re going to have to go into headquarters and act offended, right?”

“I am offended you would even think I didn’t,” she replied coldly. 

Everyone except Bucky and Natasha froze at the barely contained rage under her icy tone. Bucky took a bite of pie. It was good, tasted just like pie should even if the texture was all wrong.

“Sound good?” she asked everyone normally. The team laughed in relief and Natasha slipped an extra snickerdoodle onto Darcy’s plate.

“Sure, sounds great, Angel,” Steve agreed. “What about Bucky? How do we hide the fact we undid the whammy? Or do we?”

“We can’t hide it,” Bucky said around a bite of pie. Jane raised her brows, she wasn’t as expressive with them as Darcy and Natasha, but he still swallowed hard and wiped his mouth before continuing. “What happened on that mission, even just the parts they know about, really should have sent the Asset back with his tail between his legs. I haven’t checked in at all today, 24 hours without a check means I’m dead or incapacitated. Incapacitated usually means I had an episode, since I’m damn good at getting to a phone even with broken bones and internal bleeding. We can fake my death, if that helps, or pretend I took off during an episode.”

“Hmm, Loki, can you slap the bodyguard look on someone else? I had you with me the entire time pre-press conference, it won’t look too odd if “he” is still with me.”

“I can. It won’t work outside a certain range, but I am reasonably sure I can keep him looking that way the duration of the trip to the headquarters we retrieved Seidkonur Foster from.”

“Awesome,” Darcy said with a nod. “We’ll take unconscious Tony in tomorrow morning, saying we thought he was fine until he didn’t wake up. It’s not the best story, but… maybe it will fly.”

Bucky was in full agreement with that plan. He was more than willing to put as much space between him and his former back-up as possible, especially as the one living captive was still trapped in a bathtub with special Stark brand duck-tape. Not only wrapped in it from chest to thigh, but also with the top of the tub sealed off for three quarters of the length, forcing him to stay awake or drown in the tepid and filthy water he’d been in since Thor decided to take the cold shower cryo thing personally. It was kind of evil, really, but he had stopped caring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations  
> Fleming: FitzSimmon's Code Name.  
> Punk: 1930's and 40's slang for a young or femme looking man  
> Cat's eye: a type of winged liner that is very dramatic.  
> Stat: in this context, short for status, or status update.  
> STAP: Sooner Than Actually Possible, a military acronym I love.  
> svyataya mat' Bozhe: Holy Mother of God.  
> glupaya devchonka: silly girl.  
> Eleventh Hour: slang for the last possible moment, and sometimes the moment right after the last possible one.  
> Wimple: the part of an old school nun's habit that went around the face, but under the veil.  
> Scene Two: code for the second stage of Heracles Burn.  
> Treasurer: Jasper Sitwell  
> Triple-Threat: Antoine Triplet  
> Bionic: John Garret
> 
> Notes:  
> Brooklyn in the 1930's was known for it's drag cabarets, in which very sexy female appearing singers preformed, but all were assigned male at birth, and were usually cis-gender, but there were a few cases of possible trans performers, but the records are fuzzy because it was illegal to be trans. I modeled my idea of the performance after the scene from the pilot episode of Opposite Sex, only with Skinny Steve and a 1930's song. Look up the clip, it's amazing.
> 
> RuPaul, whose name does sound like Rue Paul, is a famous Drag Queen who has a popular reality show.
> 
> There are indeed Drag Nuns. They are called the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and they minister to the queer populations left feeling out of touch with their own faiths which condemn them. They began in the Castro district in 1977 chasing hateful anti-gay protesters. Their website is http://www.thesisters.org/
> 
> Nuns in Catholic schools used to be allowed to strike children, usually on the hand with a ruler, as a punishment.
> 
> With Steve not technically dying, the Army does indeed owe him seventy-ish years of back pay, and with pay raises and automatic promotions based on time passed, it's probably a bundle. Someone did the math, but I can't find that info.
> 
> Apple jello pie is exactly what it sounds like. Apple pie, except the filling is apple flavored gelatin. Clint uses apple juice as well as apple jello to make it extra flavorful, as well as the spices one expects in apple pie.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “I was told to try to recreate you by my girlfriend’s father, Steve. I watched everything. You went through a very embarrassing phase in the seventies. There was spandex and a sculpted motorcycle helmet involved.”


	17. Covers and Caravans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy gets her Shadow Brother settled, her team collected, and everyone on the way.
> 
> Steve helps Bucky with food, bribes Bruce to keep his most embarrassing post-freeze propaganda under wraps and helps with escaped kids from child-care.
> 
> Bucky watches, notices, finds where he fits, hauls cookie thieves out into the light, and deals with a color based paranoia.

The next day, Darcy, Natasha, Clint and surprisingly Pepper, went to work making everyone look bandaged and exhausted. Darcy and Nat handled bandaging things on people, their knowledge of how everyone fights giving them a more realistic view on what would have needed to be bandaged, had they really had to deal with an angry Winter Soldier. Clint and Pepper combined her years of experience seeing people in various states of unrested exhaustion and his fast hand with a make-up kit to give everyone a tired and drawn look.

Jane and Bruce directed the creation of a stretcher for Loki, their combined knowledge of re-purposing and the magic of duct tape building something that could carry the increased weight with no sign he wasn’t the same weight as Tony. It looked ready to fall apart at a moment’s notice, but it wouldn’t.

Tony came out dressed in a standard Stark Industries helicopter pilot’s uniform, complete with aviator sunglasses and a ball cap.

“Seriously?” Darcy asked him as she adjusted Phil’s sling.

“Nobody ever looks at the pilot. And yes, Robin Hood, I know you’re flying it, but I need an excuse to stay inside it.”

“Works for me,” Clint said as they got Loki on the stretcher.

She turned to check on Loki but he was whispering to Clint so she stayed back until the archer nodded. “I’ll put my best on it, I promise,” he said.

They moved quickly, just as if they really did have a comatose Tony on the stretcher between Thor and Steve, and soon they were unloading on top of the Triskelion’s medical department. Darcy breezed past the security with Barton beside her yelling at the top of his lungs for a medic. It was actually pretty loud, even by her standards, which had been set by explosions and Thor, so she dropped back next to Natasha.

“Wow, does your man have a set of pipes,” she said under her breath, her lips barely moving.

“He took out his hearing aids, he’s profoundly deaf without them,” Natasha replied in the same way.

“Also, Barton used to be a circus performer, he learned how to project his voice over a crowd as a child,” Phil added from Nat’s other side, matching their subtle speaking.

“Good to know,” Darcy said, then she spent a second weighing the value of subtlety versus getting to put tonality on her words. She decided to go with tone, although she kept her voice quiet. “I asked Fleming to meet us and got pointed back at you. Free up my people, dude.”

“I have no idea who Agent Fleming is. But I bet Fury does. I’ll get that taken care of.” He left and Nat peeled off to go with him. The buddy system was just a given.

Clint got ‘Tony’ checked in through the red tape at Medical, and Steve used the excuse that Howard, rest his soul, would never forgive him to do the transfer into bed to hide how heavy Loki was and all the tiny bits of help he was giving Steve. Thor bellowed at the doctors and nurses that tried to check on the actually uninjured Avengers, and Darcy noticed his thick not-quite-an-accent, got much thicker. To the point that when the group left medical, she nudged his side.

“Good fake-out, Lightning, our Shadow would be proud. Probably is, since I think they heard you in Hoboken, and he was a lot closer.”

“Just because my brother was gifted a silver tongue, does not mean that mine of lead is of no use.”

“Duly noted.” Darcy nodded, then did a quick headcount. Bruce was standing in Thor’s shadow, clearly intent on using the larger presence of the God of Thunder to hide. Nat and Phil had gone off to the bowels of the administrative portion of the building, Steve had Bucky’s back, and Tony was still at the helipad. “Hey, where’s Clint, he kinda vanished on me.”

“He’s in the office section,” Bruce said. “Third door down the hall.”

“Can you watch Thor’s back for me?” she asked. “I don’t want our people alone right now.”

He nodded, so she peeled off at the door he’d indicated and scanned the top of the cube farm, until she saw Clint leaning on a desk whispering with a non-Nat redhead. Said redhead was smiling, and touching Clint’s arm in a familiar way. Well, Darcy had told Bucky she’d do the shovel talk, and there was no time like the present. 

She threw her arm jovially across Barton’s shoulder, casually bumping the woman’s hand with her hip. She caught his gaze and clumsily but emphatically finger spelled ‘break her heart, I break you’ at him.

“What?” Clint sputtered. He was still louder than normal, but it wasn’t the full room bellowing of earlier. “No, this is Ciara, I was just asking for a favor. You know, for  _ Tony, _ since we’re off to Nevada without him.” 

“Oh, understood.” Darcy felt the blush burning across her cheeks, but she had no real reason to fight it right now. This was a natural mistake that was obvious to anyone who’d seen her signing, she could take her lumps like an adult.

“If it helps any, my boys call him Unca Clint and he’s one of the few people allowed to take care of them if I’m on mission more than 24 hours,” Ciara offered. “It’s... a short list.”

“Ah, sorry,” Darcy said to her. “I misread this situation, but Barton here needed the shovel talk anyway, so we’ll just call this a general principal warning, yeah?” 

Clint snorted. “Like you told Loki, if I fuck this up, Nat’ll be the one informing me, and she doesn’t miss anymore than I do. She can handle herself.”

“You can’t blame me for worrying about my Natka,” Darcy said with a sniff. “When you’re done here, just meet us in the caf, I’m pretty sure that’s where our bottomless pit team-mates are.”

<^>

Steve watched Darcy neatly partition off the team before peeling away to collect a stray. While pairing up was a good idea, he didn’t like the way their cluster was drawing looks for standing in the hall. He tapped Bucky’s right elbow and jerked his head. Bucky, in his unnerving disguise, nodded and helped lead the way to the cafeteria.

“How’d you know?” Steve asked.

“You’re always hungry, Steve.”

“No, how’d you know where this was?”

“Oh, they gave me schematics to memorize once, we thought it would be useful so Darcy kept them. Do you have money?” He touched his stomach with a frown. “I’m starving.”

“Do not fear, friends,” Thor said. “The Lady Pepper has given me a card of credit, which she says may be used to buy what one needs. A most useful and thoughtful boon.”

“Fantastic,” Steve said. “Let’s get some of everything and then split so we can all try it.” He and Bucky each grabbed two trays and Thor followed suit as they methodically got one serving of everything. Steve made sure to grab mashed potatoes and gravy and a bowl of applesauce. “If you want to try getting back to real food, starting soft seems safer.”

“I’d start with the applesauce, it’s recommended for tender stomachs,” Bruce said, flagging them to a table he’d saved while they got trays.

Bucky ate a little, smiled and wound up finishing the bowl without looking up. “Oh, we were going to split. Sorry.”

“It’s not a problem, I’ve had it before and Thor can go get another if he wants to. Right, big guy?” he asked Thor, silently asking for help stopping Bucky from getting all guilty again.

“Oh indeed. And I am quite happy with this stroganoff made of beef. It is very hearty, would you like some, Captain?”

“No, thank you though, I know it sounds weird for a guy who knew food shortages his whole life, but I’m actually a bit of a picky eater, and I can tell from the color it won’t have enough sour cream in it.”

“When did you eat beef stroganoff, Steve?” Bruce asked him.

“Ashmyany, during the war, we did a fair bit of travel… well, you know. Man, I tell you, nobody puts out a spread like an angry Byelorussian housewife whose town has been occupied by Nazis. We hid in one lady’s barn and she brought us all dinner. According to her daughter, Mrs. Medvedko cooked when angry.” Steve thought about it. “Actually, based on Tatiana’s use of a frying pan, I’d say the whole family went for the cooking tools when they were angry. Good swing though.”

“Huh.”

“What?”

“Oh, I’m just re-categorizing an entire life’s worth of data on you into the propaganda folder,” Bruce said with a smirk, suddenly reminding Steve that Bruce had probably seen the films. Or the cartoons. Darcy had used them to get him angry enough to stop sulking in the ice, and they were terrible. 

“Oh, dear lord, tell me you didn’t watch the 1990 movie.”

“I was told to try to recreate you by  _ my girlfriend’s father, _ Steve. I watched everything. You went through a very embarrassing phase in the seventies. There was spandex and a sculpted motorcycle helmet involved.”

“Kill me now.” Steve buried his face in his hands.

“I need pictures,” Bucky said. “For reasons.”

“Okay, but Reb Brown doesn’t pull off the spandex as well as Steve pulled off the tights in the original stuff.”

“Not those reasons. I heard about this thing called Photoshop, and I have some hilarious ideas.”

“Bruce, I will literally punch General Ross in the jaw while in uniform and put the video on YouTube if you do not give him those pictures.”

“Sorry Bucky. You’re going to have to find someone else to do your seventies propaganda search, that’s the best offer ever.”

<^>

Bucky watched everything, very carefully. He’d been trained to. Longer than some people live, seeing what others didn’t dictated his survival, even if he chose not to remember most of it consciously. He noticed the tension in Natasha’s back as she followed her handler. He noticed the way Darcy circulated the group, checking in, making contact. He noticed how Steve steered them away from the stares as Bruce was starting to get anxious, and how Bruce stepped up when he was nervous, and Steve and Thor worked to keep him from feeling guilty. He noticed how their smiles got more real when he joked back, how Bruce prodded Steve when he looked broody. 

_ He doesn’t know how strong he is like this, _ Bucky realized. 

Bruce had no idea how strong a person had to be to look at that pain and try to ease it. None of them did, not one single Avenger assessed their own strengths correctly. They were so strong, and it had nothing to do with super powers, super suits, or super serums. They were strong, because they helped others be strong. There was a tiny bit of Darcy in them, in that ability.

He may have been on autopilot while he thought all this, but his autopilot included proximity alarms which is why he reached down and pulled twin redheaded four year olds from under the table after one made the mistake of taking a cookie from Steve’s tray.

“Buck…,” Steve said warily, and Bucky cocked an eyebrow.

“You took a cookie that wasn’t yours,” he said solemnly to the one in blue. “That’s wrong. Steve was going to eat that.”

“But he got lots of food!” protested the one in green.

“Because he has to eat lots of food. If he doesn’t, he faints.” The boys giggled and Steve frowned.

“I do not  _ faint, _ Buck,” Steve said.

“Fine, you swoon. Have a fit of the vapors, call it what you will. He still needs to eat or I gotta carry all that.” The boys looked at Steve, who had stood for a better glaring position. And they looked up, and up.

“He’s a giant,” said the green one in awe. The blue one offered back the cookie, only slightly nibbled.

“I’m going to go buy them each a cookie that’s their own,” Steve said after accepting the nibbled white chocolate and macadamia cookie. “Do you know anyone who could help me pick the best one?” he asked the boys seriously before taking them to the counter to buy them a cookie each with the card Thor handed him.

Clint and Darcy came into the caf as Bucky was considering what to do about suddenly acquiring toddlers. They were accompanied by a woman with matching hair who scooped the boys up with a smattering of a language Bucky didn’t speak.

Clint sat backwards on a chair and stole the curly fries and Darcy slid the hummus to Bucky and showed him how to use the flat bread to eat it. He ate cautiously but it felt okay, until suddenly he was too full. Darcy noticed that and took the rest of the hummus to eat herself.

Natasha and Phil arrived and they all went back up to the helo-pad where Tony moved over and Clint flew them back to the tower to change transportation.

Darcy squealed when she saw two skinny kids by Jane’s RV in the garage. He picked up her discarded go bag and watched her meet old friends for the first time. After loading luggage into several vehicles, Darcy hopped in the RV and called out to Bucky.

“You get shotgun, Jane needs the back and we both know Steve is shit with directions.”

It seemed they were finally off. Although Bucky noticed a van joining them on the highway after a pit stop.

“We have a tail,” he noted.

“I invited that tail. I want Red out of the shit storm zone too. It’s cool.”

“Got it, just checking.”

“Uh-huh. Hi, I’m Paranoia Girl, have you met me?” she snarked at him. “I know an inner freak out when I see it. What’s going on in that head of yours?”

“Not a lot of good memories of that color, Dollface. Red blood, red skulls, red rooms, it’s… hard not to think of Red as a threat.”

“Red lips,” she countered. “Steve blushing red right from the tips of his ears down to his nipples. Sexy red lingerie. There are good red things too.”

“Red lingerie?”

She pulled her tee shirt to one side, exposing a strip of cherry bright satin. “Play nice with the others and I’ll let you play naughty with the red lingerie.”

“You drive a hard bargain. Deal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Triskelion- the name of the SHIELD HQ in DC. Technically it would have been faster to go to the NY field office, but they had other reasons to come here specifically.  
> Pipes- vocal chords, used to indicate loudness.  
> Buddy system- the rule of nobody ever going anywhere alone, a safety measure.  
> Caf- short for Cafeteria.  
> Boon- favor.  
> Auto-pilot- doing things without thinking to hard about them, usually because you are thinking of something else.  
> Swoon, have a fit of the vapors- both old terms for fainting associated with women.  
> Shotgun- the front passenger seat.  
> Tail- someone following you.
> 
> Notes:  
> Clint is a make-up artist in this for two reasons, one, he was in the circus and probably learned there, and two, Jeremy Renner who plays him was a make-up artist for a while. I like giving people multifaceted talents and this one just made sense.
> 
> Re-purposing one thing into a new thing is a very useful skill on a budget, and especially since Jane and Bruce are shown in canon to have done this to make their science equipment, I figured they would be able to do this.
> 
> Steve has super fast healing, so bandaging him would be pointless, but showing that he USED to have a band-aid with the grey residue leaves the impression he was hurt, even if he isn't now.
> 
> In the comics, Clint is profoundly deaf. They give multiple reasons and ret-cons for it, but he's always disabled in the comics canon even if it doesn't get brought up, unless the ret-con set him back to normal-hearing, when you can expect him to get deafened again.
> 
> Soft foods are recommended for people transitioning onto regular food from a liquid diet. Bananas, soft rice, and applesauce are in the top easiest foods.
> 
> There are many recipes for beef stroganoff, and the one I (and because I'm an egotist, Steve) prefer is heavy on the sauce and much paler than most recipes. I understand it's a Belarus/Polish variant, so I brought in Asmyany, where Dugan shows he knows the terrain in the Agent Carter TV show.
> 
> As bad as the 1990 Captain America movie was, nothing will ever beat Reb Brown in a patriotic Evel Knievel suit with sculpted wings on the helmet for embarrassingly tacky renditions of Cap. I'm head-canoning the bad writing and strong political slant into movies set entirely in WWII for this story.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “I can feel you checking out my ass Steve, get in here before I change my mind.”


	18. Red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy takes notes on her team, works around Bucky's over-protective nature, and lets Steve unwrap a present they all enjoy.
> 
> Steve takes care of his loves, and has some amazing sex.
> 
> Bucky worries, waits, and is rewarded for his patience.

Darcy pulled them off the road in Oklahoma to sleep for the night, and after circling the vans like wagons in the camp-site she’d paid for in cash, making sure everybody had beds or sleeping bags and checking on the fire Bruce built, she hauled out a cooler of hot dogs and marshmallows.

Tony handled the stick with meticulous care, far more invested in making it perfect than she’d ever seen him with anything other than his machines. The way Pepper kissed his cheek when he passed the hot dog to her explained a lot, he was learning, for her. It was sweet, as was Jane lecturing Thor on proper roasting for her preferred style. 

It was interesting how everyone did their roasting a little differently. Darcy paid attention, learning what she could of her new team. Bruce stuck his hot dog right into the fire, almost touching the coals.  _ He’s killing any germs that might be there _ , she thought to herself when the normally meticulous scientist set a charred stick of former meat in his bun. He wasn’t always guaranteed safe food, and he’d been on the run long enough to develop habits to keep him safe. 

Clint was nearly a total polar opposite, warming his dog at the top of the flame rather than actually cooking it. Briefly she wondered how many times he ate uncooked food that he got used to the possible toxins or germs.

Natasha refused the hot dogs in favor of a box lunch Phil handed her, the trust inherent in that small gesture warming Darcy in a way that had nothing to do with the fire. She turned to point it out to Bucky, when she noticed his face set in a glower. Bucky put his metal arm conspicuously between the new brunette and Darcy and Steve. Steve caught her rolling her eyes at Bucky, and followed her look.

“So,” Steve said to try to bridge the distrust, “I don’t think we were introduced, Miss…?”

“Skye, just Skye, I absolutely hate my last name. It’s nice to meet you. Officially, I mean I did work with those two on your brain wave patterns,” she said, indicating Fleming. Well, the two halves of Fleming. Darcy had been surprised to discover the bio-hacker was actually Jemma Simmons _ and  _ Leo Fitz. Not noticing the conversation, the two were currently debating the exact temperature at which to eat a roasted marshmallow and not noticing the cinder that was the first try still in the fire. “So I kind of know you, because I saw that, and they said some stuff about what it meant, but I don’t really know you, you know?”

“Yeah, I know. Darcy talks about you, so I feel I know you, but well.” He shrugged.

“Totally,” she agreed. “IRL is so different from the internet. Uh, IRL stands for-”

“In real life, I was under arctic ice, not a rock. Besides, we had pen pals. It’s not as new as you think.” He looked at Bucky, then at Darcy. “Apparently, a lot of things are not as new as you think. Lay off the jealousy, Jerk. You used to actually be good with women, you know. When did I get that job?”

“Yelena,” Darcy answered and cautiously looked at Natasha across the fire as her boyfriends stared at them.

“Chertov Yelena,” the redhead said automatically. Her voice was bitter but not the rage Darcy remembered, that was good. Natasha deserved to heal from that pain.

“Wait, I got lost,” Skye said. “Who’s Yelena?”

“The _ other  _ Black Widow,” Natasha said. “The ‘loyal’ one.” It was sort of bizarre watching Natasha do air quotes, but Darcy couldn’t disagree. Lena had betrayed all of them, despite all efforts to help her, but she gave blind loyalty to Russia and the Red Room.

“Oh, bondage Barbie, I remember her, yeesh, that was a crazy one,” Clint said. Darcy snorted her bottle of water and coughed.

“I cannot believe you called Lena that, oh god, that’s too priceless.”

“She was blonde, improbably proportioned, and dressed head to toe in black leather, it was a reasonable nickname.”

“Not arguing, just disappointed I didn’t get to see you call her that to her face. But yeah, Lena was a real piece of work and totally destroyed any ability for any of us to see a woman first and a threat second, which I am still mad at you for,” she told Bucky. “I should have gotten that lesson into you before the goddamn war, but no, it takes a sociopathic Russian assassin to do it. I should have made James Bond mandatory viewing.”

Bucky shrugged, not denying it, but he did ease off the edge he’d held. Darcy and Phil wordlessly divided up the campers and made sure that they had actually eaten more than marshmallows and got them into sleeping arrangements.

<^>

Steve didn’t say anything as he watched her get everyone settled. He didn’t need to, he knew this was part of who she was, as much as the fighting, as much as her smarts, she cared for people. She always had. He nudged Bucky and led him to the RV, where he unloaded the tent and air mattress Tony had got them, since the RV only slept two.

One hour, seventeen minutes and five more entries into the swear jar later, the tent was up, the air mattress inflated, and all three sleeping bags unzipped and laid out like blankets. Darcy joined them, having gotten even the most stubborn sleepers in bed, although she was muttering darkly about Tony and a hidden vodka flask.

“So, red lingerie?” Steve asked with one eyebrow raised.

“Bucky told you.”

“He may have. He’s in there wondering if the cold shoulder he gave Skye means he won’t get to see it.” Knowing full well Bucky could hear them, he grinned at her. “What do you think?”

“I think you were a very nice boy tonight, and everyone knows the nice boys get to unwrap their presents. It’s not really Christmas, but I think that holds true here. If you want to share, that’s up to you.”

“Well, they do say sharing is the nice thing to do, and I like unwrapping presents,” he smiled on the edge of a leer and unzipped the tent for her. He took a moment to appreciate her backside as she crawled in.

“I can feel you checking out my ass Steve, get in here before I change my mind.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He followed her into the tent, where the inflated queen sized luxury mattress had been fitted with sheets. Kicking off his shoes, he climbed in beside her, with Bucky watching hungrily as he pulled her shirt off slowly, pausing to kiss her skin as he bared it. By the time it was off and her bright cherry red satin bra was available to see, Bucky was visibly hard under his sleep pants and from the wicked smirk Darcy sported, she had seen it, and she knew why.

Steve took his time, pulling down the straps to kiss the lightly imprinted skin where they had been, fiddling with the bow that covered the front clasp before opening it, gently easing the cups of the bra off of her breasts so they wouldn’t pull or bounce unpleasantly for her. Looking at Darcy bared to him, to them, like this sent a thrill of excitement through him. He dipped his head low to catch one nipple in his mouth, playing with it until Darcy grabbed at his hair to pull him away from the overstimulated flesh.

“I guess I did say I would share, didn’t I, Angel? And I was giving all the attention to one side. That wasn’t very fair of me.” She smiled at him and moved her hips, making him acutely aware of what his placement of one knee between her legs had put him near. “Buck, I think the lady could use a hand up top while I get to work down here.” Bucky slid into place to kiss and lick and stroke the other breast as Steve unbuttoned her jeans and pulled them off to see a pair of soaked cherry red satin panties. Oh Lord, he had no idea why he’d been blessed with this amazing woman, but anything he could do to satisfy her every need, he’d do.

<^>

Bucky had been filled with worry as Darcy drifted off with Skye, which was a much easier name. Red was danger and pain and captivity, but skies were freedom. He knew he’d been rude. His own mother, had she been alive and present would have smacked his head for the way he’d treated the young woman. And Darcy had been specific. He was supposed to be nice around everyone. As much as he had teased Steve about spoiling the relationship with his awkwardness back in the War, now it was him who might have ruined things.

He got the bed ready for three people who really hated the cold, and tried to believe she’d forgive him. Steve had noticed when they got done and said something as Bucky mechanically dressed for bed. The whole embarrassing story came out. Steve had held him and kissed him and brushed the hair he hid behind out of his face. Then he went out to talk with Darcy. The conversation made Bucky’s face heat, the idea of unwrapping a warm, willing Darcy like a present filling his mind until everything else was gone. When she came in it was hard not to reach for her, but she’d been clear. He knew the rules.

Steve unwrapped her slowly. He’d always unwrapped things slowly, carefully, saving the paper or the ribbon or even the twine off a postal package on the front. When Steve’s mouth went to her breast and her face shifted into pure bliss Bucky bit his lip to keep from begging to touch her, to help bring that look to her face. He wanted to, oh how he wanted, but even with all the memories he had saved with Darcy, there were too many instincts against asking for anything.

When Steve offered him her other breast, he looked to Darcy and the hunger in her eyes as she nodded. It had been a really long time, even ignoring the cryo-freeze, since he’d done this, but some skills you can never forget. For him, this was one. He worked her higher and higher as Steve did something she greatly enjoyed down between her legs until she let out a muffled cry and bucked wildly. He turned to Steve, who was licking his fingers clean.

“Want some?” Steve offered, and he did not need to ask twice. Bucky eagerly lapped at the musky juices and sucked on Steve’s fingers like it was something else entirely. His hands flew to Steve’s fly and soon he was sucking there, swallowing his lover’s cock back until he was close to gagging, then pulling back with suction, swirling his tongue around the tip, over and over until Steve spilled his pleasure into Bucky’s mouth with a quiet moan. After swallowing, he looked back at Darcy, who was looking at them wide-eyed and hungry.

“I… I need,” she trailed off, seeming unable to form a sentence.

“I can’t right now,” Steve said apologetically as he changed pants.

“Bucky,” she said, somewhere on the edge of a moan and a demand.

He certainly wasn’t going to tell her no. He let Steve pull down his soft sleep pants and roll on a rubber, as Darcy scooted back to make room for him between her legs. Plunging into her was like a pleasurable version of the wipes, his brain went blank of any and all thought aside from doing as she said, faster or slower, and every inch of his body tingled with pleasure. He finished as she clamped down hard on him with a short, low growl of “Darcy,” before Steve was catching him and helping him lay back bonelessly on the air mattress. Darcy, still naked, curled into him and Steve wrapped around her back and pulled up the covers. Sleep came hard and swift, and he didn’t dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Chertov- fucking, used as a curse-word.  
> Cold shoulder- to be dismissive and cold towards someone without being overtly mean.
> 
> Notes:  
> Yelena Belova was a second product of the Red Room's Black Widow project, only she never defected and hates Natasha for her perceived betrayal. She is indeed blonde, improbably proportioned, and when not undercover, dresses head to toe in black leather.
> 
> James Bond is a fictional spy who has had many romantic encounters with hot Russian spies, who usually try to kill him.
> 
> Assembling a modern tent can be very easy, if you've done it a lot. I know people who can get a three person tent up in fifteen minutes with no problem. However it is a very particular skill, and if you don't have it, it's going to wind up like trying to re-fold the road map or untangle Christmas lights. Personally I prefer old-school tent designs since they're easier to put up, although they can be heavy and harder to transport.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> Hey, she adopted two brothers, that meant he got to have a sister, right?


	19. A Morning Adventure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy has a scare, eavesdrops on Bucky and Skye, and trolls Bucky about hair braiding.
> 
> Steve goes for a run, meets a man, and trolls Darcy to Tony's disgust/amusement.
> 
> Bucky goes to have an overdue chat with Skye, gets therapy, and starts expanding the family.

Darcy woke up pleasantly sore and mildly irritated at the tweeting, chirping birds. She could tell by the light that the sun wasn’t really up, and if the sun wasn’t up, neither should she be, she thought. Rolling over to cuddle Bucky, she realized he wasn’t there. Sitting up in a panic woke Steve.

“Angel?”

“Bucky’s not here,” she whispered, her voice barely making a sound.

“He’s an early riser, and he took breakfast watch most nights. He may have gone to get things ready,” Steve told her, but his voice was unsure.

“I’ll check the camp; you do a run of the perimeter?” she suggested.

“Good plan.” Steve kissed her, pulled a jacket over his pajama top and crammed his feet back in shoes he hadn’t unlaced the night before. Before she could retrieve a clean bra, he was out of the tent. 

She had a lot of the skills of a soldier, from shooting and navigating rough terrain, to planning attacks and assessing threats. She’d had to, it was learn or die and take a man she loved with her. Getting dressed quickly, however, was not one of those skills. Her crash course in speedy dressing she had gotten as Jane’s intern. It wasn’t rolling out of bed and onto a battlefield, it was being in the driver’s seat before Jane could go haring off after a nifty sky thing without any back-up. She wasn’t quite as speedy as Steve, but faster than Jane and that was all that mattered.

Jamming a knit hat over her hair she stepped out and scanned the camp. As expected from the lack of scolding, Bucky was not, in fact, setting up breakfast. Her heart beat loud in her ears as she checked each tent and the RV and Tony’s van. Tony was awake already and offered to hijack a satellite for a quick heat scan, but she turned him down. He did suit up, though and after making sure he’d gotten six solid hours of sleep and confirming with both Pepper and Jarvis, Darcy let him go up for a quick fly over. She and Pepper shared an amused glance and the red and gold armor and Darcy had a horrible thought.

She raced to the beat up van closest to the entrance to the park. It was farther away than the rest because Skye was still wary of the whole team thing, still nervous that crossing the shady MIB shenanigans of SHIELD would put her in an oubliette. That fear put her outside the safety of circled wagons, outside shouting distance, and there was every chance that would cost her.

A bad enough nightmare and Bucky might not even know what he was doing, why he was so sure Skye was a threat, he’d just react. Badly. Darcy’s heart, followed immediately by her feet, came to a sudden short stop when she saw the door cracked open on Skye’s mobile lab area. That turned out to be a good thing, since her freeze let here hear a bit of conversation rather than rush in assuming the worst.

“So that’s why I was such a major jerk. It’s not an excuse, but I thought you should know it wasn’t you, it was completely me and my mush for brains,” Bucky said around a mouthful of something, Darcy could hear the crunching sounds.

“Eeeeenh,” Skye replied with a game show buzzer sound. “It wasn’t you at all. It was those no good, two bit, Nazi hacks trying to rewire a system they had no idea how to operate as end users let alone programmers. You see, brains are just very complex computers, when you think about it. Your brain, my brain, all brains, they’re like the CPU of the whole body. And they act as memory back-ups and they handle logic gate problems for you so you can make choices faster, I mean, I hate a ton of things about how human beings were designed, but God is a very talented wetware designer. And humans, I mean we aren’t anywhere close to figuring out how all it works. Trying to reprogram an advanced wetware system, that was moronic in the extreme. Brainwashing is basically just downloading a shit-ton of malware into the system so you can make it do this one thing it wasn’t meant to. They made a bug, called it a feature, and foisted all the blame on you for the shit they broke doing it. Not your fault, man.”

“Thanks Skye. Where’d you get so good at saying all the right stuff? I feel like I’m always messing up Steve and Darcy’s life with my stupid mouth.”

“Hey, my friend really likes that mouth, stop talking shit, got it? And it’s kinda hard not to learn how to say the stuff that will calm someone down when they’re upset when you grow up like I did. Catholic orphanage.”

“Seems you’d learn how to condemn or keep quiet, place like that. Unless they changed.”

“Can’t say much for the nuns, honestly, but when I was six, this blind kid was brought in. Older than me, he had a dad and a mom, even if she wasn’t around he knew she was real, but then the dad died and the mom never picked him up. He was a wreck, and I wanted to hate him for it. I’d never had parents, not once, the orphanage was all I knew as a home. He at least had something for longer than I’d been around. I was so angry, I was screaming inside while I kept quiet and condemned.”

Skye laughed bitterly, the sound heavy with the weight of scars.

“Then he walks up after school and he has this big bruise, all on his face. He said he fell, but I knew a kiss with a fist when I saw one. Had enough myself. But he sits down right next to me and he just breathes. And I see every inch of his stress and pain dropping away. It pissed me off so I was gonna grab him, scare him, you know?”

“A blind kid?”

“I was seven, I was a bit of a dick, okay? But the weirdest thing happened. I reach out and he grabs my hand. Holds it. And now I’m standing there looking like a dork with him holding my hand. But he gets up and he hugs me, and says thank you. So I demand what for. Turns out his hearing got way better after he lost his sight and my heartbeat was the loudest, the easiest to find. As long as I was there, Matty knew he wasn’t alone, there was somebody else, even if she was always angry. It’s what I needed to hear. That I wasn’t alone, that I was wanted. Matty was like that big brother I never asked for, and he... he was the one who taught me this stuff. He taught me the tells, so I know what people need, the words, the ones that make people stop and think, the ones that make them let go of the pain, the ones that make them accept the things they did wrong. He always said I was better at it since I didn’t need bat ears to cheat with.”

“Your brother sounds swell.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure if he’s still my brother. I sort of… ran off. I wanted to find the truth about my parents, so I put probably dead people before him the moment this group said they wanted me to join. I wasn’t even seventeen when I deleted everything there was on who I was, including the home we shared, and created Skye. Some things… you don’t get forgiveness for.”

“If he was ever your brother Skye, he will forgive you.”

“How do you know?” Darcy could hear the aggression that hid pain.

“I was a big brother too. My sister might be dead, it’s been so long, but I don’t care if she became a mob moll or changed her name or decided to pretend I never existed, I would still love her. I’d give just about anything if I could talk to Becks one more time. Trust me, big brothers will forgive little sisters anything. With a token amount of groveling, it  _ is  _ our duty to torment you too, you know.”

“Oh I know. Matty was a little troll. He’d take the hit instead of me though. I miss him.”

“You do realize you can probably look him up,” Darcy said, opening the van door a bit more to see Bucky and Skye in pajamas and braids on her bed eating dry Froot Loops. “And I did bring milk, bowls, and spoons too,” she added with a pointed look at the not at all balanced breakfast.

“Dollface, this isn’t what it looks like,” Bucky said, hands up in a calming gesture.

“I dunno, looks like you snuck out on me and Steve to get therapy from my main hacktivist and from the looks of things, let her braid your hair. I had dibs on that hair. You totally hair-cheated.”

“Um, is that really a thing now?” he asked looking worried. Darcy and Skye lost it.

“No,” Skye gasped between laughs. “It’s not a thing.”

“I have no intention of telling you what to do with your hair or your body, Bucky,” Darcy rolled her eyes. “Seriously, after all we went through you think I’m going to be that bossy and possessive? Never going to happen.”

“Not what you said last night, Angel,” Steve said behind her

“Way too much information, even for me,” Stark said from the air.

“Wow,” Darcy said dryly, “I guess when the king of hedonism tells you you’ve crossed a line, you know the actual sin line is five miles behind you.”

“And don’t you forget it,” Tony said. “Ooh, Froot Loops, can I have some?”

And, just like that, everyone got up and prepared breakfast and the caravan moved out again as the sun finally really rose behind them.

<^>

Steve had worried when Darcy told him Buck was gone, but not as much as she was. The campsite was full of light sleepers and if Bucky was being attacked, he’d yell like nobody’s business. He took the perimeter sweep as a chance to do a quick morning run. The woods were actually comforting, strangely, considering the only time he’d been in woods he’d been fighting a war, but he liked the mix up of flat running and avoiding trees. Of course, the one time he didn’t avoid a tree root, he fell on his face in front of a small house and the guy on the porch laughed and called him a stupid white man in Choctaw.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m an idiot,” he replied in the same language as he stood up. He’d been friends with a few of the code-talkers and picked up a few things. “But it’s because I’m from a city, not because I’m white.”

“You speak Choctaw?” the man asked in English.

“Only enough to get me through a war, sir.”

“We haven’t had code-talkers since the second…”

“I know,” Steve smiled his Captain America smile. “I should get back or my dame’s gonna kill me. Be a damn shame to survive Nazis and aliens, and die at the hands of my girlfriend, can you see the headstone? Here lies Steve Rogers, War Hero, Avenger, and Total Dumbass.” He left as the guy was cackling.

He got back to find Darcy teasing Bucky and felt it was only fair to tease her in return, since Bucky was bright red, sputtering, and wearing a French braid. He was in no place to defend himself. Tony getting in on the action just made the morning better.

<^>

Bucky had thought his impulsive, early morning trip to ramble out an apology would end badly, but Skye was a pretty great person. She’d invited him into her van, which was obviously her home, too, braided his hair while he spilled his guts about a bunch of stuff that had nothing to do with her, but he felt better talking about it. When he finally got around to how upset he was by the color red, even the word, she’d shared her sugary cereal and told him it wasn’t his fault. When he told her that her brother would forgive her, he wasn’t blowing air, she was so much like Rebecca that it almost hurt. He couldn’t imagine any brother not forgiving her.

Later, in the RV with Darcy, he asked to borrow her phone to text Skye. It took him two state lines to get it right, but Darcy was helpful about it. He was sure she’d overheard enough to know the kind of big brother buttons Skye pressed in his head. Hey, she adopted two brothers, that meant he got to have a sister, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Breakfast watch- sometimes called morning watch or last watch, this person starts breakfast.  
> CPU- Central Processing Unit, the 'brain' of a computer system.  
> Logic gate- a code that performs a logical operation on one or more logical inputs, and produces a single logical output. In effect, you see the symbol for poison, you make a logical deduction it would be dumb to consume the contents, you do not eat poison.  
> Wetware- biological computing systems, like brains.  
> Malware- code designed to damage or sabotage the code it is inserted into.  
> Kiss with a fist- slang for a punch or the bruise left by a punch.  
> Mob moll- the girlfriend or wife of a Mafia member.  
> Hacktivist- Skye calls her group of socially motivated hackers this. It's a Hacker-Activist.  
> Blowing air- saying something you don't mean.
> 
> Notes:  
> There are many ways and reasons a person learns to get dressed quickly, but many rely on muscle memory, which is why Darcy doesn't have Steve's speed here, her needs allowed for a little more slowness than his.
> 
> One of many possible symptoms of PTSD is disassociative action. In this state people move and act, but are not consciously controlling your actions and when they come out, may strongly regret what was done in a state of disassociation. Disassociation actions are normally born of subconscious fears or desires.
> 
> Skye is using a very apt computer metaphor. Most brainwashing methods operate by breaking a person down and rebuilding them the way you want them. Humans are nowhere near close to knowing how to do this without massive psychological damage and trauma.
> 
> My family has quite a lot of Choctaw humor and tradition in it, this is exactly how a friendly interaction would go in this circumstance, and the headstone joke is right up the alley humor wise.
> 
> You'll hear a lot about Navajo Code-Talkers, but the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes had a fair number too in WWII. Choctaw and Chickasaw (which are super similar, being brother languages) are very hard to decode, because they use a cultural-linguistic schema unlike anything in Europe. Also, sometimes Code-Talkers would troll the spies by acting super secret and serious about weather and farming small talk, then guffawing their way through critical troop orders.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “Darcy’s not a people, she’s a person, who is not horrible, and persons are way better than people.”


	20. Settling In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy herds cats, talks about trust, and tries her best to help her people.
> 
> Steve talks to Tony, hears some history he hadn't known, and takes Tony on a Firefly Run.
> 
> Bucky helps with the infrastructure of the base, talks to Clint, and feels out his place.

Darcy was beat by the time they made it to Nevada. Herding cats might actually be  _ easier _ than managing this bunch. She asked Skye to put the bug zapper in the safe house, an abandoned looking bunker.

“Why is this even here?” she asked Coulson, incredibly envious of his unrumpled, fully rested appearance.

“When the nuclear proliferation bans were put in place, America had to… divest a few accounts that had been missed in the books. They couldn’t exactly get rid of them the ordinary way, so they did what most people do with skeletons in closets.”

“They locked them up, buried the safe, and tossed the key in the ocean.” A thought hit her. “And they built a bunker that could  _ theoretically _ just be a backup for training in desert environments right on top of the buried safe.”

“Yes, that’s the gist,” he said calmly. 

Bruce looked a little green, and not in a Hulk way.

“Are you sure I should be here? My last experience with radiation did not go so well.”

“I trust you, Bruce, and I trust Hulk,” Darcy said, cutting off his protest with a hand. “You never looked at the salvaged security footage I had Jarvis save for you. He’s a sweet seven-year-old little boy, who happens to be bigger than Shaq, green, and with a slightly larger radius of destruction for his temper tantrums than average. But the question now is, do you trust Phil? If he says it’s safe, I’m willing to accept that, but if you aren’t, I will put us on route to Reno and make Tony get us rooms.”

Bruce looked at her with a confused face. “People… they just aren’t like this. They don’t just accept that the guy who irradiated himself can be trusted around radioactive material, and they certainly don’t say they trust Hulk. He’s a monster.”

“Oi!” Jane called out. “No smack talking my friend, Bruce. I happen to like Hulk, there are a limited number of people on the planet that enjoy it when I ramble at them about stars and quarks and break into spontaneous educational songs. And besides, of course people aren’t like this, people are horrible,” she said with an air of total logic. “Darcy’s not a people, she’s a person, who is not horrible, and persons are way better than people.”

“We’re all special little snowflakes, Brucie-bear,” Tony added, “and there is no ambient radiation above the average for air in this zone. I scanned it before agreeing to come out here, certain forms of radiation react badly with the reactor core. Why do you think I’m actively trying to out-compete nuclear power plants? A few more Chernobyls and my heart gets shredded by an exploding electromagnet before the shrapnel ever gets a chance to kill me.”

“I… guess this is okay,” Bruce said unsurely.

“Dudes, you guys gotta come see this! It’s like something out of a video game!” Skye yelled from inside.

“Coming!” Bucky yelled back and lifted all three of the triad’s go bags on his metal arm. “See you inside Doll, my sis is calling.”

Darcy rolled her eyes and started herding everyone inside.

<^>

Steve looked at the concrete walls and decided they’d do. They were under at least ten feet of dirt, steel mesh, and ballistic resistant Stark Industries anti-radiation concrete. And that was just the top floor. They’d be safe here from anything short of a nuclear winter, which would only be a problem when the massive stock-pile of preserved food ran out, and with six people on the team with extensive knowledge of stretching out food, they’d die of old age before that happened.

He glanced at Tony expecting to see the genius complaining about not getting signal yet, or how outdated the fixtures were. Instead he saw the look he’d seen on the green-bean troopers. White knuckles, no expression, tense body lines. His shoulders were straight. They were never straight around the team. Even with Darcy’s recruits, he’d been leaning, shifted contra posture, slumped, hunched, a dozen positions and shapes Steve recalled perfectly. He’d only ever stood like this when he was around someone he didn’t trust.

“Tony,” Steve asked quietly, not surprised he startled the billionaire, but certainly amazed at how quiet and small the start was. “What’s wrong?”

“I ever tell you how I became Iron Man?”

“No, Darcy told me about the suit, the thing in LA, your work in war torn areas taking out Stark Industries weapons, but how you got to that point… even your file was sketchy. And yes, they gave me your file, they wanted me in the command slot on the team.” He rolled his eyes at that. He was not the guy they all seemed to think he was. He’d never been the leader, not even of the Howlies. Each of his teammates had a unique skill set, and he did have a knack for deploying them effectively, but every single Howlie, even the reserves like Happy Sam that people forgot, also knew how to lead. Every Howlie knew every other Howlie’s abilities and half the time all he ever did was state a target and let them go where they needed to be.

“I was kidnapped. Terrorists, called the Ten Rings. They held me in a cave. Put the magnet in my chest to keep me alive to build them weapons. When I said no, they… hurt me. You’d be amazed exactly how advanced the ‘advanced interrogation’ methods can be in a cave in a desert,” Tony said with a wry smile that hurt to look at. Steve gave him an encouraging nod, letting him fill the silence at his own speed.

“I built the mark two because I needed to know if it was a fluke. I built the mark three because I made a promise to a dying man. I have the mark seven because the past keeps trying to kill me and the only way I feel safe is to stay ahead. I’m a futurist out of fear and need.” He looked at Steve, his brown eyes blown with fear into near complete black. “But I built the mark one to get out of a cave.”

“Do you need us to find somewhere else? I’m sure Coulson didn’t know how you’d react to this, or we wouldn’t be here.”

“No, I don’t want to hold the team back, I know I need to stay low so Loki stays safe and we make those Hydra bastards pay. I can tough it out.”

“Can doesn’t mean should Tony.”

“A lot of people tell me that, usually I have a revolutionary bit of tech a few days later.”

“I’m not talking about building Skynet, Tony. You obviously taught Jarvis very good manners and he would never try to take over the world. I’m talking about suffering. You are not holding us back by needing things. What do you need?”

“Sky,” he said softly. “I need to see sky.”

“Yeah, what’tcha need me for, Mr. Stark?” Skye said, bounding over at the sound of her name. Tony flinched.

“Wrong sky, kiddo,” Steve told her. “Darcy! I need to take Tony on a Firefly Run.”

“Got it, take water, we’re not technically in Death Valley, but it still gets up well over ninety out there. If you aren’t back in an hour, I’m going looking for you and there had better be a damn good reason I had to sweat, Steven Grant Rogers.”

“I got it Angel. We’ll be careful.”

Outside, Tony relaxed, seeming to melt. His breathing leveled out and his posture went back to its default flop. “So what’s a Firefly Run? I highly doubt there are any bioluminescent bugs out here, and I know there are no space ships. I run scans.”

“You do?”

“I almost got a SETI award when I was eighteen, messing with frequency junk. But I only got a partial before I lost it, so it didn’t count. But I’m sure there are aliens, non-Asgard aliens with ships, so I keep an electronic eye out for them. Half of NASA’s private donation funding is me in various aliases so they won’t realize one person is keeping the space program from dying. I don’t want them feeling obligated.”

“That’s neat, I didn’t know that. I knew about the moon, Darcy showed me that one. Stops my breath every time, you know. Just that, what my time called science fiction, this time calls history.”

“Remind me to dig up some of my old filk records for you some time, I think you’d like Fire in the Sky and The Ballad of Apollo Thirteen.”

“Yeah, that reminds me, I meant to ask, what was the song you had going in Stuttgart? I liked it.”

“You liked Shoot to Thrill? Man, I gotta tell Dad you’re into AC/DC. He and I disagreed on a lot of my favorite music.”

“That’s because your Dad actually knew how to dance. I don’t, and so music wasn’t my favorite. Then-music, I always liked Darcy’s music. I could dance to that, the videos showed the basics of doing that alone, and Darcy doesn’t have asthma.”

“That tracks, I guess. But you still never told me what a Firefly Run was.”

“Oh, well, in the War, sometimes a fella’d start to get a little hot under the collar. Too many orders, too many horrors, too many chains you can’t see but sure can feel. You let them run hot too long and they end up shooting their foot to get free. If you’re lucky.”

“If you aren’t?”

“It’s better not to think about what happened to the squads that ran a soldier hot and weren’t lucky. To make it short, Howlies called those cases Reaver hits and never reported what happened or who had been run hot. There was no reason to hurt the families, who wouldn’t understand it, or to slander a man who had a very bad but totally natural reaction to the worst of mankind. We knew that but for the grace ‘a God and Darcy, it could have been us.”

“Christ.”

“Yeah. We didn’t want our own to run too hard and end up like that, so we started Firefly Runs. A chance for someone running too hot, pushing hard burn, to get out and away. To feel free, for a while. ‘I’m still free, you can’t take the sky from me’ you know? And it’s not going AWOL if your commander goes too, or sends someone with you. It’s also helpful to have someone to catch if you need to crack, or defend you if the enemy found you on a Firefly. Nobody who needs a Firefly is in any emotional shape to fight.”

“You seriously did this, back in World War Two? I thought that was all ‘walk it off, rub some dirt in it, stop whining.’ PTSD didn’t become a thing until later. As a diagnosis.”

“If Howard weren’t elderly I’d slap him one,” Steve growled. “Just because he was constantly high on adrenaline and booze and only ever needed a Firefly once the whole time I knew him doesn’t mean the rest of us weren’t invested in keeping our friends from losing it. Never leaving a man behind means his mind and soul as well as his body.” 

“That’s not an attitude you see in the military these days,” Tony said mildly. Too mildly. Steve quirked a brow at him.

“I don’t know how other units handled it, but  _ our  _ team took care of our own. Darcy, Bucky and I still do,” he said passing Tony another bottle. “If we make sure you get plenty of Firefly Runs, do you think the Bunker is still going to cause problems?”

“Maybe. If we’re out here most of the time, training or whatever, or if I can get a good work set-up. I hardly ever notice the basement in Malibu, but that’s because I only go down there to work.”

“We’ll see what we can do. You get enough sky?”

“Yeah, it’s hot out here. Have I mentioned I hate deserts?”

<^>

Bucky helped Skye redo the technical set up. It was a far cry from cars and rifles and even the old radio he’d fixed for a fast dollar once. But he could follow her instructions and carry heavy things. Her bossy sassiness was just like Rebecca, he thought, a pang of old but new loss going through him. He pushed it down to help her, but noted he’d have to tell Darcy about it later. She knew lots of tricks for this sort of thing.

When Skye declared the computers workable, barely, they moved on to helping Thor and Phil and Clint get the sleeping areas set up. Nobody wanted a bunk scenario, so small offices were being pressed into service as bedrooms, their desks being moved to walls and beds from the barracks rooms were moved in. When Bucky frowned at the tiny cots, Clint showed him how to use strong plastic and steel ties to fix the legs together and lay the mattresses sideways before putting on sheets. They did that in Tony and Pepper’s room (from which they removed the desk, lest Tony be tempted) and again in what would be Darcy, Steve and his room. When they did it a third time, Bucky raised an eyebrow. “Thor and Jane aren’t sharing beds yet.”

“It’s not for them. It’s for Nat and me. She has… a preference to wake up beside someone, who she knows, and who can adequately defend themselves from her.”

“With the new direction though…”

“If it goes where you think, that is not your business unless I fuck it up. If it doesn’t and this is just another shared sleep comfort thing, I’m alright with it. Nat knows I’m aware she would turn my testicles into earrings if I assumed she was supposed to give me anything like that if she doesn’t want to.” Clint laughed. “Aside from saying anything out loud, we’ve been together since ’98. My niece calls her Mama Nat, she’s not old enough to care that I’m an uncle and Nat is my work partner. We’ve been Dada Clint and Mama Nat since she could talk, and frankly, I don’t want to argue with Lila. She’ll win.”

“How old is your niece?”

“Three.”

“Yeah, that is not the hill you want to die on, my friend. Wait until she starts liking boys.” He thought for a moment. “Or girls, I guess, but not in the “braid hair and make friendship bracelets” way. In the footsie under the table at the dance hall way.”

“I’m so not looking forward to that. My brother is going to be no good at that one. It’s going to be worse than Cooper’s first PTA bake sale. I bribed people in the Chatter Box to get me dirt enough to get that bitch Shelly to back off Laura for being a basically single mom.”

Bucky laughed and they went to rejoin the group in the main level of the Bunker to eat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations  
> Bug zapper: as you may recall, the high frequency emitter that jams audio surveillance used by Darcy and Jane.  
> Chernobyl's: nuclear power reactor meltdowns.  
> Green-bean troopers: new soldiers with very little training.  
> Contra posture: all weight on one foot, seen in Classical Greek sculpture.  
> Advanced interrogation: fancy term for torture.  
> Skynet: a fictional, evil, Artificial Intelligence that began as a Jarvis-ish program in the Terminator 'verse.  
> SETI: Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, a real program. I don't know if they have awards, but I'm betting they would have given Tony props if he'd ID'd Yondu's landing to get Peter (the thing he almost got when he was 18).  
> PTSD: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  
> Footsie: bumping or rubbing feet together as a public form of intimacy.  
> Chatter Box: home of the analysts that listen to radio signals and other communication, called "chatter". 
> 
> Notes:  
> Nuclear proliferation and disarmament treaties happened at the end of the cold war, but knowing the paranoia that the cold war induced, I'd say there's a high likelihood our reported number of nukes was lower than our actual number of nukes. Hiding that would be easiest by putting a new installation over the old launch bases.
> 
> Many artificial elements, like Tony's new reactor core, do odd stuff when exposed to certain radiation. I don't know of any that blow up, but it seemed like a good fill for why Tony is trying so hard on the energy front.
> 
> How a person stands in different circumstances can tell a keen observer what they feel if the behavior changes. Steve may not see himself as a leader, but this skill comes from having been a leader. And a really good one, the best leaders in adverse situations help all their people be capable of stepping into the leader's shoes if need be, and knowing each others skills that well came of good leadership.
> 
> Filk music is a form of modern folk music, often focused on science or science fiction, Fire in the Sky is about the space program in general listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ryd_p20XEU The Ballad of Apollo XII is more focused on the three absolutely terrifying days of the Apollo 13 flight, you can listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbL3oNEDvJ0
> 
> Wars in general are not good for human minds. Although there are very few records of what happens when someone snaps outwardly, those we do have are bad. Bad enough to warrant referencing the violent rapist cannibal Reavers of the Firefly 'verse. The Serenity, the main ship seen in the show, was a Firefly class cargo ship.
> 
> There's a large idea that WWII was full of tough 'walk it off' types. Every single active-combat vet I have ever met said that mindset is bull, you did your best to keep people sane enough to be reintroduced into civilian life after because to do otherwise would be leaving a man behind. It didn't always work, and the Howlies had a leg up, but the soldiers did try.
> 
> Platonic shared sleep can be very comforting to someone with PTSD, which Nat likely has. It's a part of what has been called the "take the watch" effect, where hyper-vigilance eases up when someone else "takes the watch" for you, letting you relax knowing they're looking out for you. Waking up violently can also be a symptom that increases difficulty sleeping and Clint's ability to stop a half-awake Nat from killing him makes him safer.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “Agh, this is worse than when Bucky drank a margarita and I got Darcy’s hangover."  
> “It bothers me that I understand that sentence.”


	21. The AM in Team

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy plans her plans, trains with the team and gears up for a mission.
> 
> Steve settles into his new life, finds a new breed of bully, and gets a hangover.
> 
> Bucky resists field work, changes his mind, and is a big sap.

It took Darcy a day, but between herself, Pepper, Coulson and against anyone except Darcy, Coulson and Natasha’s expectations, Clint, they formulated a schedule of training as a team, getting the two soldiers and Thor up to speed on modern and Midgardian cultural shifts (which she was fairly sure her men would use to troll Tony on his days to teach), working to restore Bucky’s control, and making minor actions against a few clustered Hydra cells to the north.

Team training began as a grandstanding show, everyone exhibiting their skills for the rest, while Coulson took notes. Then they started the Batman Versus Superman phase, which had to be postponed for a quick lesson on comic book history for Thor. But with everyone paired off with new people, it was interesting. Or it would be if Clint stopped using sticky glue foam spurting arrows when she was trying to get close to him.

“Dammit Barton! I know you can do hand to hand.”

“So I’ll put down my bow, and you’ll put down your electro-shock gloves, and we’ll try to kill each other like civilized people?”

“No good. I’ve known too many archers.” She pulled a folded cloth from a pouch on her belt and tossed in over a puddle of sticky glue, quickly using the square foot of protected space to help her vault off the springy goop and into a spinning roundhouse kick to Clint’s jaw.

“That’s a Nat move,” he accused from the ground after tapping out.

“Actually, Yastreb, that’s a Darcy move that she taught me,” Nat shouted from her face-off with Steve.

“I thought Barnes trained you,” Tony asked, rising out of a hole Thor had dug with his body.

“Do I look like I have the fucking thighs to do that?” Barnes asked from where Bruce was sweeping the ground with drone controlled lasers, since none of them thought the team was ready to bring Hulk out. “OW.” He pulled his paint pistol and shot out the offending drone.

“Point,” Tony conceded. “Hit the deck, I’m running off of forty times my normal max power,” he called as a bright beam from his chest burst out to hit Thor in the face as Tony hovered to get the height needed on the alien god. Thor was thrown back a good fifty yards.

When they retrieved him, the big blonde was laughing. “I have not had this much fun in combat in ages! I like your Midgardian weapons, Man of Iron. I must take you to Nidavellir sometime, you would get along well with the Dwarves there.”

“Was that a crack at my height?” the shortest male Avenger asked as he helped haul Thor out of his own crater.

“Nay, friend Stark, it is a compliment of your skill of craftsmanship. The Dwarves of Nidavellir are many things great and good and true, but they are also quite particular about craftsmanship. ‘Tis for this reason many do _not_ get along with them. Acid can be their tongues when things they deem unfit are brought before them.”

“Um, Lewis?” Tony looked at the resident translator, Darcy. Jane had gotten out of that job despite Thor having formally requested to court her on the basis she wasn’t that fluent in Normal. It might not be Darcy’s preferred language either, but she was at least good enough to pass if need be.

“They’re tech snobs, Tony. That means they only get along with people with similar standards, and they get hipster superiority mean about low tech or poorly made tech. Like you.”

“I do not!”

“Pepper gave me footage of you testifying in front of congress. You totally went Mean Girls on Hammer, Regina George.”

“Ouch, fair, but ouch.”

<^>

Steve was enjoying the new schedule, team training was fun, but really, what was better was being shown all the history that he’d missed and Darcy hadn’t shown him, either due to lack of time or keeping him from learning about his own historical footprint, or lack of it. Both he and Bucky were decent enough with mundane modern things like cell phones and microwaves, but it was funny calling them ray-cookers in front of Tony. They stopped when Thor caught them before a class and told them they were hurting his ability to keep up and he really didn’t know how microwaves worked and wanted to learn. They laid off after that.

Cultural stuff was another thing entirely. He knew about the civil rights movements, but he was shocked and outraged at how exclusionary modern movements were. Natasha ended up shooting him with a knock-out gun Fitz and Simmons were working on after a particularly loud outburst involving pay equality and the lack of gendered bathroom laws allowing trans people to go where they wanted. Waking up five hours later with a headache was no fun.

“Agh, this is worse than when Bucky drank a margarita and I got Darcy’s hangover,” he complained.

“It bothers me that I understand that sentence,” Clint said, handing him a suspicious opaque red orange drink somewhere in the color wheel between coral and salmon. “Down the hatch and do not ask what’s in it. You will thank me. Well, once the aftertaste is gone.”

Steve sat up and downed it in one long gulp, working not to spit it out. “What did I just drink? And why did it taste like stale coconut shavings?”

“I told you not to ask, but how do you know what coconut shavings, stale or otherwise taste like? You never served on the Pacific front.”

“I ate an expired Hostess Snowball once when I was swapped out with Darcy. It. Was. _Horrible.”_

“That would do it. Anyway, the stuff was formulated to help with the after effects. Simmons is still working on the right knock-out compounds to fit in the round size Fitz has to work with. This one was more potent than she really wanted it to be, so she whipped that up to get you back up and running faster. If you didn’t already have increased healing speeds, you would be in a coma.”

“Sounds like the Night Night Gun is going to take more work.”

“She hates that name, by the way.”

“I know, but I can’t pronounce her name for it. What did I miss?”

“The end of Cultural Class and a movie,” Clint said. “Darcy said you’d seen it though. Field of Dreams?”

“Love that movie. What’s next?”

“We were going to hit a cell up north, you in?”

“Is the Arctic chilly? Of course I’m in, Clint. I’m always up for Squid on a Stick,” Steve told him, trying to stand up. His legs wobbled and then straightened as he abruptly lost all the hangover effects. “Wow, Doc Simmons makes good stuff. Let me suit up, I assume this is a flash party?”

“What, did the purple armor give it away?” Clint asked cheekily, waving at his secondary suit for non-SHIELD missions, which was indeed a lovely shade of eggplant highlighted in orchid.

“Naw, you wear that for fun, but you invited me, and everyone knows I can’t hide for shit.”

Barton laughed at him, since Steve had taken out Tony, Thor and surprisingly Natasha in the last team paintball game.

“Captain Rogers, may I remind you the Swear Jar Protocol has not been removed in my expansion into the base?” Jarvis asked politely.

“Oh, sorry, uh, an extra round of night shift?”

“Miss Lewis has requested that you not be allowed to disrupt your sleep cycles. May I recommend trash duty, as none on the base enjoy it, and it will give you an opportunity to do physical labor that is neither training nor psychologically motivated.”

“Sure, I can do trash duty this week.” It was a detested task, taking the combined trash generated by the entire base in a week, sorting out recyclables and compostable waste, then driving the stuff not being turned into dirt on one of the lower floors to the tiny one stop sign town a few miles out to dispose of it. But Jarvis was right, it was labor intensive and would help him focus better since it was totally mundane. “You’re good at keeping us together Jarvis.”

“Thank you, as Ms. Potts can attest, I had ample learning experiences with Sir.”

Steve chuckled and went to suit up.

<^>

Bucky was not happy. Sure, taking out Hydra cells was why they were out in the desert in the first place, as cover for Loki and the devastating cyber-attack Skye had regaled him with descriptions of, but he wasn’t at all sure of his girlfriend's reasons behind wanting him to go too.

“Dollface, I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I’m not clear enough to go fight with you now.”

“Nat says you’ve cleared every single-use code word in your brain and can resist or redirect nine out of ten of the reusable ones, and none of the remaining codes could cause you to harm us or civilians. I trust that assessment since she deprogrammed herself, and has been nothing but loyal and good in a fight. You’re ready, Bucky.”

“That’s not what I meant, Dollface.”

“The very fact you’re calling me Dollface tells me you know you’re wrong. But please, do tell me the dumbass idea you have about why you can’t fight.” Damn but it was hard to argue with a woman who’d lived in your head and stored half your life in hers. Especially when she looked so good in the navy blue one piece combat suit with the belt hanging just so on her hips.

“I’m currently the world’s most feared assassin. I’m not someone who should be seen fighting alongside you, the Squids will use this to destroy any faith the people have in you. I’ll only dirty your image.”

“Nice try, and it would have worked, if I planned on hauling your shiny metal arm into the light of day. But I don’t. I spent way too much of my life learning not only why the victors wrote the history we have, but how they did it, and the methodology of fear mongering hasn’t evolved that much.” She gave a dangerous grin, a knife’s edge smirk. “I know you won’t be  _ visible, _ but are you or are you not the same man who broke into the Pentagon, the most secure military facility in the nation, to poison the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation?”

“He was black-mailing scum and you know it.”

“I never said that was a bad thing, I just asked if you could slip in and out of the Fort Knox of official business meetings to kill a guy without even a hint of conspiracy theory, why do you think an animal testing lab in Reno is that different? A lot fewer threats, and this time, if you get seen, just shoot them. We don’t want survivors anyway, it’s more effective if they find the place cleaned out after it went dark.”

“God you’re stubborn.”

“You love me for it,” she grinned, cherry lips quirking to the side.

“That I do. You head out a little before me, if they pick up trace on me, it’ll look like I was tracking you after the assassination attempt, off the reservation, but still on the mission. Safer that way.”

“Good call. I asked Fitz to reconfigure your mask and goggles, now they link into our communication net. The strap on the goggles has your earpiece, the mask has your mic. You click your tongue twice to turn on communication, and twice again to put the ears on silent. We haven’t built in a mic shut off yet, so if you need to pass us a message when someone might hear you, use code. Skye and Coulson will be on control, Pepper is handling supply, so if you get hurt, tell her so we can have medical aid ready. Simmons fortunately does have a certification for field medical. If anything jams tell Fitz, he and Tony reworked your guns, they should be lighter and easier to use now. This is an easy run, Hot Stuff, turn your coms on when you get to the site.”

“I love it when you get bossy.”

“Trust me, you and Rogers are the only ones who feel that way,” Tony called from the door. “Break it up you two, we have squids to fry.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Yastreb: hawk. (Russian)  
> Hit the deck: get down on the ground.  
> Flash party: a showy act of force, often a distraction.  
> Dollface: the name Bucky uses for Darcy when he's made her mad.  
> Off the reservation: acting without sanction.
> 
> Notes:  
> Batman vs. Superman is a common trope in comic books, pitting two "good" characters against each other to see who will win. Sometimes friendly, like Superman racing The Flash, often very dark, like the Civil War comics and that one where Clark loses it and kills Luthor.
> 
> Darcy and Clint's banter is based off two different scenes from The Princess Bride, both spoken by The Man in Black.
> 
> As to Why Darcy translates, what Tony speaks is Also Not Normalese. Tony, I am entirely certain, was told that words are weapons once when he was a kid and didn't know how to people, and immediately dove into learning everything about how best to use this weapon, then learned pop culture to try to understand Normal better, and as a result of his "like Jane" status that was mentioned later, those two things merged into the dialect of Tony being poiniards and culture references and metaphors.
> 
> Mean Girls is a movie about mean high school girls, the worst of whom was Regina George.
> 
> Coconut really wasn't a thing in America until after we made Hawaii a state and a bunch of GI's came home hooked, much like pineapples were prohibitively expensive prior to Dole plantations in Hawaii.
> 
> Physical exercise can be grounding, but for individuals who associate it with life or death situations, may not be the most restful. Finding a normal physical task to do can help soldiers reintegrate better.
> 
> The director of the FBI mentioned is J. Edgar Hoover, who did indeed keep blackmail files on basically everyone who was anyone in Washington DC. His death was... odd to say the least, but there are no conspiracy theories that I know of about it.
> 
> Fort Knox is the federal gold reserve, and therefore is often credited with the highest security of any building. I don't know if there is anywhere with more, but it's a saying.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> "Anyone ever tell you you’re kind of scary?”  
> “No, never once in my whole war fighting, assassinating life has anyone ever said that I was scary.”


	22. Mission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team takes down a Hydra base, Bucky gets to free a prisoner, and everyone's a little screwy in the head. They couldn't be Avengers if they weren't

Darcy still loved the fight. It was weird and twisted, but somehow, every time she rounded a corner and knocked out a Hydra scientist or goon, she felt a little giddy rush. She liked fighting beside Steve instead of inside Steve. She liked how he called out clock hour positions as they took out clusters of bad guys, helping her aim and defend herself. She liked seeing Natasha blind and shock and overwhelm opponents who never saw her coming. She liked the loud booming laughter of Thor as he destroyed the instruments of death they built here, and the way he was teaching Hulk to count by counting the “smash” mid-fight. It was like a weird Legolas and Gimli parody, but it seemed to be working. She liked the sudden introduction of odd arrows to the fight from some rafter or vent, turning small areas into fire or oil slicks, some arrows even hitting targets, but mostly just causing confusion and chaos.

“Somebody tell me we’re recording this,” she said as she decked a scientist who had his pants literally on fire.

“We are,” reassured Natasha. “I want Tony to see this first thing when he wakes up.” Since Tony was on the com line back in the surveillance van, everyone knew who she was talking about.

“Good point,” Clint said over the coms, “that little shit would love this.”

“Clint, you’re the one doing it. Stop bragging,” Steve chided as he and Darcy ducked through a door. Her whole body locked up and her breath came in too fast and shallow. 

The chair. 

Or one like it. Oh God. 

“Hulk, I have a situation,” Steve said calmly, “I need smash, and I need it now.”

Hulk’s bellow shook the floor like a speaker set up at a rave, but his footsteps shook it like a small earthquake. Darcy distantly processed being moved to the side as Hulk made the door fit him. She felt more when he shredded the chair. She finally took a normal breath as the scrap that had been a chair fell out of Hulk’s hands.

“Darcy not scared now?” he asked her. She choked on what might have been laughter or tears. Uncontrollable rage monster her sweet tits, this guy was amazing.

“Darcy is very much not scared now. Thank you for smashing that thing for me, Hulk.”

“Bad thing hurt Darcy.”

“Yes, often, too many times to count.”

“Hulk can count,” he said. “Twenty-four,” he pointed to the chair remains.

“Good, let’s find you twenty-five.”

Then she was fighting again and everything made sense. Fights were simple, take them down before they take you down. She couldn’t do that to her own fears. She was lucky to have a team.

“Darcy! I’m out of arrows and there are robo-squids in the vents!”

She rolled her eyes. “Get something non-conductive between you and the metal, Hawkeye. Steve, I need a boost.” She shook her shock gloves rapidly before using them to pummel the metal of the duct above them, shocking it with waves of current. “That do it?”

“Yeah, they fried more than a carnival Twinkie. Anyone ever tell you you’re kind of scary?”

“No, never once in my whole war fighting, assassinating life has anyone ever said that I was scary,” Darcy said sarcastically. “Bring one back, I’m sure engineering will want a look.”

“Damn straight I do,” Tony muttered over the coms.

<^>

Steve was grateful for all the team training the resident planners had put them through. It was paying off as he dodged through a minefield of little shock bombs Natasha spread everywhere and Clint rained seemingly random chaos on their enemies. He knew how the pair worked, though, and it wasn’t random at all. It might not be planned, exactly, but the two worked together to drive the unwary into their traps. They hunted, stalked, laid the traps and brought down the prey. 

Thor was calculating under his big dumb puppy persona, he may have been wrecking the place, but he never compromised the structure. He never put the team at risk, and he was teaching Hulk, both counting and where not to smash. Hulk was happy as long as the team was happy, and he stuck to Darcy’s rule from New York about inanimate objects. He could be remarkably gentle with people, preferring to put them in a corner and order them to stay put. Most did. Steve couldn’t blame them; he’d seen how Hulk had reacted to seeing Darcy’s fearful stare at the odd dentist chair contraption. His demolition had turned the complex machine into metal and plastic confetti.

The last of the fight went out of the Hydra agents, and Steve signaled a stand down. Barton dropped from an overhead vent to the ground, a metallic octopi the size of a small dog under his arm. Natasha carefully gathered her shock bomb traps and Thor shook debris off his cape.

“Hulk go now?” the big green hero asked.

“Uh,” Steve stalled out, Hulk had become Dr. Banner pretty quickly after New York, it had seemed like going to sleep. But he’d also been resistant to letting Bruce come out, and the way Bruce sometimes talked about him, Steve couldn’t say he blamed Hulk.

“Are you tired, Hulk?” Darcy asked patiently.

“No,” he rumbled. It sounded like a kid who didn’t want to go to bed. Darcy must have thought so too.

“I am, you can stay but I would really like it if you would hold me so I can lay down.” When he hesitated, Darcy made a baby rocking shape with her arms and Hulk got the idea, letting Darcy climb up to rest. “Thanks Hulk. So, what do you all think we should do with them?”

“You know I don’t like witnesses,” Natasha said, sharpening a knife. Steve wasn’t sure where she’d gotten it from, knives weren’t part of her standard arsenal. “Is sloppy.”

“Now, Nat,” Barton said consilitorily, and Steve knew it was another trap they were baiting together. Normally Clint never took that tone with Nat and with good reason, she’d threatened to stab men for less. “You’re trying to go good. In general, killing isn’t good.”

“But these fiends have broken many oaths, should I take their medals meanings right,” Thor said, unexpectedly spotting the trap too, and playing into it flawlessly. Suddenly Steve remembered the God of Thunder was the brother of the God of Lies, and had more than a fondness for electricity in common with Darcy. Darkness raced the storm’s edge, too. “Do not all the healers of the Nine Realms swear to do no harm? Great harm has been done here. Do we ignore such dishonor as that?”

Steve was about to play the dancing monkey when Hulk spoke up. “Gold hair woman, there, not bad. Not smash not bad people. Wrong.”

Steve looked at the woman Hulk had identified, she looked as scared as any of the scientists, but there was something else, something familiar. His mind with its horribly perfect recall gave him a unit of Sonderkommandos, fresh from liberation, eyes averted from their friends and family. Guilt, unwilling and unwelcome, yet unwavering all the same.

“Ma’am, I want you to stand up and come over here.” She nodded quickly, stood awkwardly and walked over to the gathered Avengers.

“Steve,” Tony said on the coms, “look at her leg.” Steve glanced down to give the tiny camera in his cowl a better angle and saw it himself.

“Son of a… sorry ma’am,” Steve said as he bent to pull up her pant leg. “Anybody else think that looks like a bomb?” he asked.

“FUCK!” Barton swore, diving down with a small set of lock picks. “Nat, pass me a flame-stopper arrow, blue band at the fletching.”

She handed it to him as the archer pulled the anklet off the sobbing scientist and he jammed it into the workings, covering the bomb in dense, sticky, fire hardening foam. A muffled bang sounded and Darcy and Nat both winced.

“Steve, she didn’t work here willingly,” Darcy said softly. “We can’t punish her for this. We also can’t put her back in public circulation yet, the other cells will kill her for escaping. She’s got too many secrets. I don’t give a fuck what we do with the guilty ones, but we can’t kill her. I can’t, she’s too much like…”

“Too much like me,” Bucky finished for her on the coms. “I’m fifteen minutes out. Put the fear of the Winter Soldier in ‘em. I’ve faked enough deaths to do hers too. Darcy gave me back all the Howlie deaths I pulled, plus a few others. Call Fres when you get clear.”

Steve nodded. Looking at the rest of the prisoners. “Well, we do happen to have a trigger happy, metal armed assassin on our tail. She can hide in that closet, and we’ll gift wrap these for him.” He watched faces go pale with fear, except one man in the back. Natasha saw it too, since she tossed him the duct tape.

“Tie them up,” she ordered. He did so, passing hand signs when they wouldn’t be caught. Nat grabbed his wrists and bound them after he was done. “We need information. I’ll make you talk, little man.”

Steve ushered the woman to the closet, she didn’t need to see whatever Bucky decided to do. “Stay here, stay quiet.” He paused, unsure what to tell her about Bucky. “Even if the Ghost of War Past looks like the Ghost of War Yet to Come, trust him. Reapers bring in good crops, too.”

“You’re a nerd, Rogers,” Bucky said into his coms. “Clear out, I’m ETA in five minutes.”

Steve closed the door and waved the team back to the van they’d taken, one of Phil’s, bullet-proof and hooked up with defense systems better than forts Steve had seen.

<^>

Bucky liked the motorcycle. Tony had found it and began using it to tinker the day they moved in. As a result it had some better than standard features, like a built in Jarvis for directions, speed reminders, traffic alerts, and horn activation. Of course, because Tony was Tony, and Bucky had called dibs on the bike before Steve or Natalia could, the default horn setting was a harsh song riff about dirty deeds done dirt cheap. Little did Tony know Bucky sweet talked Jarvis into letting him have a secondary horn setting, the sound of an old-fashioned fog horn. He’d also stolen Tony’s phone and changed the default ring tone to the original Jack Haley version of “If I only had a heart” from The Wizard of Oz. 

He turned on his coms as he slowed to enter the residential side of town on his way to the warehouse on the other side. He had to go under the speed limit and avoid traffic cameras, slowing him down. He heard what sounded like a gun with a suppressor go off, followed by Darcy explaining why she wouldn’t kill the woman who’d gotten trapped. He volunteered to take the job and swerved around a school zone. Too many cameras. As he cleared the residential area he heard Steve’s badly coded message and would have rolled his eyes.

“You’re a nerd, Rogers. Clear out, I’m ETA in five minutes.” He didn’t get a response; he didn’t expect one.

Inside the compound, he swiftly executed the Hydra agents and used a knife to carve the words Failure is Unacceptable into the bloody drywall behind them. He’d been told that, so many times, always coupled with pain, punishments, drugs that made him lose reality. He cleaned himself up, disabled the cameras, and realized that he had no idea which closet the innocent was in.

_ Darcy, which closet did Steve put the woman in? _

_ Janitorial, on the right as you leave. _

Bucky went to the correct closet, opened it and got a face full of bleach. The mask and goggles protected him, but he was still a little bit blind from liquid beading on them when she swung a mop handle at him. He grabbed it with his metal hand and stared at her wide-eyed fear.

“Cripes, lady, I ain’t here to kill you, could you kindly not kill me?” Bucky sighed and pulled his rig off before the fumes got trapped inside. “My dork of a boyfriend wants me to fake your death for you. I’m pretty good at it.”

“Captain America… is gay?”

“No. Do you people have any cadavers down here?”

“Then who’s your boyfriend? The morgue is in there.” Bucky went in and flipped through the chart.

“Captain America. Pardon for asking, but do you weigh under 145?”

“I’m 152, but I lie on my driver’s license. You just said he wasn’t gay.”

“He isn’t, we also have a girlfriend. Neither of us is gay. I think we count as polyamorous bisexuals, but I need to look into the terms more. Help me find locker K-10.” She led him to a metal door and he opened it, hauling out a slim woman close to his evacuee’s body type. “Okay, I’m going to switch your dental records with hers, where’s the computer?”

“Over here, there are also paper copies.”

“Get them, for you and her. Bring them here, I may have to do some calligraphy.”

“You do calligraphy?”

“Forgery. Snap snap, Karen.”

“My name isn’t Karen, it’s Isabelle.”

“It’ll be Karen soon. Go.” While she was out of the room, he switched the digital fingerprint and dental files on the two women, logged the deceased as having been cremated the day before, and dressed the corpse in the standard uniform of the scientists. When she returned, he quickly skimmed the files, swapped the direct information and pictures, and filled out blank forms that related identifying marks to make the kidnapped scientist the one with the scorpion tail tattoo, and handed the files back. “Go put those away.”

When she left, he hauled the corpse to the janitor’s closet he’d found her in, opened and knocked over a jug of lye onto the face of the corpse, took the extra bleach, poured it in a jug of ammonia, capped it loosely and put it by the right hand. Closing the door, he took the new Karen to an all-night internet café. There he sent Skye the basic details of the new life, and waited. He got an email two bags of chips and a smoothie later. Printing out the details, he handed her the prepaid reservation at a motel and told her to wait. Her new driver’s license would be mailed there soon.

“They told stories about you,” she said at the curb. “Like you were the boogeyman. Be good, be compliant, or the Winter Soldier will get you.”

“Winter Soldiers have never been the complying type, or did you not read Thomas Paine? Freedom is more important, don’t let your second chance at it go to waste.” He turned on the bike. “Don’t tell this story until mine comes out in full. Good luck, Miss Page. Your new life will be there in four to five business days. Do you know how to use a gun?”

“Yes, before they took me I did manage to shoot one of them. Torso, near the liver not heart or head. I wouldn’t say I’m good.”

He pulled out his smallest gun, the one meant for if he was ever compromised. It had been stripped of all identifying marks. “Get better. You’re going to need to defend yourself. Trust the man called Fres, he’ll contact you at the motel. Don’t open the door unless Fres tells you it’s shiny. Don’t ever try for a job in your field again, find another way to satisfy your need for answers. Got it?”

“Fres, shiny, learn to shoot, new job. Got it.”

He rode off back to the bunker. It felt good being the good guy again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Clock hour positions- a position based on where a person is looking, on your three is directly right, twelve o'clock is straight ahead, etc.  
> Fried Twinkie- a staple of horrible for you yet tasty carnival and circus foods.  
> Sonderkommandos- the name for units of Jewish prisoners who were strong armed into helping with the corpse disposal in Nazi concentration camps. Not a lot made it out, and those that did had major PTSD.  
> Fletching- the part of the arrow with feathers.  
> ETA- estimated time of arrival.  
> Fres- Morita's call-sign  
> Shiny- Firefly slang for all good, adopted as code use by HERO
> 
> Notes  
> The Legolas and Gimli reference is to the running gag in the Lord of the Rings movie where Legolas and Gimli keep score of enemies killed.
> 
> Darcy is having a mild dissociation event with the chair. She's not fully out of it, but it's enough to lock her up until the trigger (the chair) is gone. Steve and Hulk handle it correctly, keeping her safe and removing the trigger.
> 
> Most air-ducts are made of metal, a conductive material. Most robots are also made of metal. Hawkeye's uniform, non-conductive, therefore it is safe for Darcy to overload the duct work with electric charge.
> 
> In canon, Clint worked at a circus prior to becoming a SHIELD agent. Hence his fried Twinkie reference.
> 
> In my canon, Hulk is seven, so he has some grasp of morality and fragility of human bodies. He also has a much higher EQ (the measure of emotional intelligence) than most people, because he was made out of all Bruce's repressed emotion. Sure that was a lot of anger, but there were other things too, and being made of that makes him an emotional genius. This is partly how he can make accurate judgments about who is good and who is bad, he sees the emotional reactions and pinpoints discrepancies. Steve can do the same, but not as quickly.
> 
> The issue of the Winter Soldier's guilt/innocence in canon revolves around autonomy. A true crime requires a guilty mind, a decision to do the crime, which when lacking in control of your own body, you can't have. The scientist didn't have that either, although more from threat of death than actual control.
> 
> Steve is riffing on the Ghosts of Christmas Past and Christmas Yet to Come from Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Additionally, the Grim Reaper is Death, but harvests only come in when someone goes and reaps the harvest. He's a nerd.
> 
> If I Only Had a Heart is a song from Wizard of Oz, which came out in 1939, sung by the character Tinman about how much he wants a heart.
> 
> Sexuality isn't as black and white as many people think. Bucky has no spare fucks to give on the confusion caused by the concept of a bi, poly triad.
> 
> With the damage he caused to the corpse, identifying would go down to finger prints and dental, which he switched the records on. Additionally, bleach and ammonia create a deadly gas, so whoever finds that body will have more to worry about than ensuring accuracy.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “I thought ‘textbook narcissist’ was a little shallow. I’m sorry I was such a dick of a boss. Sorry Steve,” he said looking up.  
> “No, that is anatomically accurate,” Natasha said.


	23. Unpacking the Baggage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy organizes the Avengers, then gets roped into organizing keeping them sane.
> 
> Steve watches Tony and Natasha make strides in personal revelation and trust.
> 
> Bucky voices some legitimate concerns that turn out to be unnecessary.

Darcy trained, organized, and finally let Coulson talk to her. He wasn’t a therapist, most therapy didn’t happen over slushies and patently bad snack food from the nearest 7-11, but he’d been a handler most of her life. He knew how to spot when his people were cracking, and he understood the sorts of stress she was carrying. The fear that she wouldn’t make the right calls, that she’d get her people hurt or killed, the constant nagging perfectionism in her head reminding her that less than flawless was no longer acceptable because lives hung in the balance.

Somehow, it all came out over a blue raspberry slushie, five taquitos, and a family sized bag of cool ranch Doritos on the curb of the convenience store. Followed by the skushie, taquitos and chips coming out, since stress eating and stress didn’t actually sit together well. Afterwards, she gross-sobbed for a minute into her hands and let Phil clean her up with wet wipes and a bottle of water.

“We should get the rest of the team doing this,” he said blandly on the way back. She looked at him from the jeep’s passenger seat, squinting through the dark to try to find a sign of joking on his face.

“Puking?”

“Talking,” he corrected kindly. “You’ll find it helps. You do feel better now than you did before, right?”

“Yes,” she sighed. “And I’m familiar with therapy, I spent World War Two in a psych hospital. Steve would go for it, he also benefited from the therapy. Bucky has some hot-buttons on the topic, though, and I’m questioning your sanity trying to get the others in on it. Nat actively dislikes psychologists, Tony won’t be honest enough with one to make it work, Bruce has issues allowing himself to feel things, Thor is accustomed to magic taking the place of therapy, and Clint’s last meeting with a psychiatrist resulted in rage-baking.”

“I wasn’t suggesting a therapist,” Phil said mildly. It was hard to hear that tone and not tense up, since so many of her team used it right before turning up the danger, but Phil actually meant it as it was usually used. “I was suggesting we get people talking to each other. I can see a number of potential partnerships to work on specific issues if we prompt them to talk about it.”

“Okay,” Darcy said. “Walk me through that idea.”

“Steve, Bucky, and Thor already have a nicely knit group based on world disparity, we’d be mimicking that for other issues. I think Tony, Clint, Natasha and Bucky could probably work through their time being held captive if they would actually lean on each other for support. Tony, Bucky and Bruce could discuss the unique ways they experience body dysmorphia. Clint, Natasha, and Bruce could talk about harmful childhoods. Hulk might want to be in on that too, but we’d have to unpick Bruce’s issues before we broach the topic of bringing Hulk out for anything but training and missions.”

Darcy nodded, it could work. Or it could backfire horribly. “We have to make it organic. If it’s structured therapy, they’d balk. Pauk would go running for the hills.”

“I’m aware of Natasha’s aversion to therapy. I’m also aware of her weakness for a certain type of cookie I have the recipe for. Clint’s been wanting to try it, too. If you get Clint talking when cookies might be available, she’ll stay. Maybe even talk, to blend in if others are talking.”

“We can try, but no pushing them, Phil. I mean it, some stress fractures will flat out break if you put weight on them.”

“I know that Darcy. Why do you think I hauled your life story out with slushies and taquitos? I’m a handler, I get paid to notice things. You eat sugar and grease when you’re stressed, but heavier foods and wine when you’re avoiding it. If you can’t get wine, you drink carbonated apple cider or other fruit sodas. I knew when you got a blue raspberry slushie you could handle talking about it, and probably needed to.”

“And if Clint is baking and Natasha is eating what Clint is baking, they can handle talking.”

“Exactly. I’m not sure how to get the others involved, though,” Phil admitted. “Tony never finished the paperwork on his file, most of Bruce’s file was permanently removed by General Ross, I have no clue on Thor, and a few months ago I wouldn’t have thought Captain America and Bucky Barnes’ mental stability would be my job.”

“You aren’t alone in that job,” Darcy reminded him. Pulling out her phone she sent a mass text. Pepper, Skye, Fitz and Simmons were waiting when they pulled the truck into the underground garage.

“So what’s the sitch?” Skye asked Darcy as they got out of the car.

“Do I look like Wade to you, Kim Possible? No, don’t answer that. Welcome to the first meeting of the “Friends of Heroic Hot Messes club.” We’re all agreed that my fellow Avengers and I have serious issues, yes?”

Everyone looked around and nodded. Pepper raised a perfectly manicured hand.

“Pepper, it’s not high school, just ask,” Jemma said.

“Can I call Rhodey? He’s been helping me keep Tony alive most of the time I’ve known him. Tony and he had a falling out over the War Machine rig, and Tony lying about being sick, but I know he’d want to help.”

“Good thought, but no,” Phil said gently. “Colonel Rhodes is under surveillance, and has been his entire friendship with Tony. We can’t bring him in until we’ve gotten all the squids out of SHIELD and the Air Force.”

“I can set up a silent chat for him, though,” Skye said. “Sort of like a dead drop, but in cyberspace. Between Swapper and me, we’ll have any watchers chasing their tails.”

“Tony is in a much greater need of immediate intervention,” Darcy admitted. “But he can’t know we’re intervening. None of them can, stubborn cusses. So, I want all of you to find ways to get the following groups to at least try to talk about these topics,” she began, listing the various issues the Avengers had. “It doesn’t have to be structured, in fact it shouldn’t, but they need to vent a little on it. Figure it out, and in the immortal words of Tim Gunn, make it work.” 

Everyone nodded and went back into the heated bunker. Even in the garage, the desert made it surprisingly cold at night. As Phil left, Darcy glanced up at the old-style security camera she knew was linked into Jarvis. “You know I meant you, too, right? You’re a part of our team, Iron Man suit or no.”

“Thank you, Miss Lewis. I will endeavor to do my best.”

“Good to have you on our side, Jarvis. And if you need to talk about the space thing, or the Stark Tower thing, I’d be willing to listen. I don’t know if it would help an artificial emotional structure like it would a wetware system, but I’d at least let you try it.”

“Of course, Miss Lewis. When I am ready, I shall let you know.”

<^>

Steve noticed Natasha carrying herself strangely ever since the last mission. He didn’t know why. She wasn’t injured, she had given Barton enough lectures on not reporting injuries for Steve to know that. It wasn’t the man they’d taken out for ‘questioning’ either, he’d been a HERO agent planted in Hydra and very cooperative in the debrief. He’d left as soon as they got him a fake ID and a bus ticket to Vegas where a better new identity waited. It still bothered Steve that Natasha held herself so tightly. She looked casual, but she wasn’t. He’d seen Natasha being casual. He expected Barton to figure it out and help her fix it, but that wasn’t happening.

Between his own worries and some none-too-subtle nudging from Dr. Simmons, he figured he should at least show up for Barton’s final result of practicing the new Italian cookie recipe Phil had given him. The computers might have been a technical travesty when they arrived (he wouldn’t know, he didn’t use them on Skye or Tony’s level) but the kitchen was what Clint called a ‘Retro Apocalypse Barbie Dream House’ which apparently was a good thing. Steve liked the tall kitchen chairs that went at the breakfast bar, he could stretch his legs out while sitting on them, unlike many dining chairs. 

The appealing smell of chocolate and spice was drawing a few others to the room when Steve got there. Bucky was gravitating towards the promise of sugar as he always did, but since he was also messing with Tony by pretending not to understand how Google worked and insisting Tony apologize to the poor reference librarian who had to go get all the strange things Tony had looked up, Tony was with him. Bucky settled in at the bar next to Steve, breaking his tormenting of Tony to kiss his boyfriend, a thing both of them loved being able to do in front of everyone without a blink. Tony seemed to have given up on explaining search engines, but stayed when he saw Natasha’s predatory stare at the oven. Everyone got used to her reaction to Clint being ready to share his newest treats.

“Come on, come on,” she muttered.

“Patience, Nat, seriously! I’m not the only assassin in our duo. You know how to wait,” Clint scolded from the bowl of chocolate glaze he was mixing in a stand mixer.

“I know how, obviously, I was trained in the Red Room. They also trained me to kill a man over the course of a week using a cheese grater. Just because I  _ can, _ doesn’t mean I  _ should. _ Or want to,” Natasha said smugly.

“You do realize the glaze and cookies have to cool before you can eat them, right?” her partner teased. Nat stuck her tongue out at him.

“How are you more of a child now than when you were twelve?” Darcy asked, sauntering in to scoot under Bucky’s metal arm. Her sass must have kicked off Clint’s protective side.

“Because she can be,” he snapped as he pulled the baking sheet from the oven and set them away from Natasha. “You of all people should know what her childhood was.”

“Hey, stop picking on Darcy,” Bucky said hotly and Steve worried this would get ugly. “I was there too, you know. And it’s not like we didn’t try to get Natka to act like a little girl and not a weapon. It was her worst class, actually. She was almost cut from the roster because of it. In the Red Room, that involved a lot more literal cutting than you’d think it should.”

Clint and Tony blinked.

“But you’re the world’s best spy,” Tony said incredulously. “You were a triple agent and nobody knew until you told them, even though I can’t keep a secret to save my life.”

“The  _ Black Widow _ is the world’s best spy,” Darcy corrected in defense of her adopted daughter. “Natka wasn’t her yet. We all have awkward phases, or have you forgotten most of 91 through 08?”

That reminded Steve of something, and Tony looked like he needed rescuing. “You can keep a secret, Tony, to save someone else’s life.” He gave Tony a comforting look, only to be shocked by the sudden thundercloud over the man’s face.

“WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT IT!” Tony shouted, and everyone jumped. “He was the one who went off play, he was the one who lied his ass off for me, he was the one who made Iron Man. And he died doing it.” Tony was about to stalk off when Darcy intercepted him.

“I’m pretty sure Steve meant my brother. My brother had better not have died.” She narrowed scary eyes at Tony. “Clarify. Now.”

What happened next made Steve want to puke. Tony told them the story, all of it, every detail of Ho Yinsen and the Ten Rings and the torture and building the suit and the break out and Yinsen’s death. At the end, Tony looked like a wrung out rag, and Darcy pulled him into a hug.

“I lost people too, you know. I got mine back, but….” Darcy shrugged. “I’m proud of you for sharing this with us, that was tough. And I’m glad you trust us enough to say it.” Tony just sniffled into her shoulder. Natasha left the kitchen counter, to everyone’s amazement, and tapped Tony on the shoulder.

“I lied about you,” she said quietly. “In my report. I’m sorry.”

Tony looked at her with a lost expression. She softened, seeming to drop years of age and confidence, her vulnerability showing itself awkwardly, like she didn’t know how it fit on her face.

“I was trained from four years old to pinpoint weaknesses, identify strengths, avoid detection as I took someone apart from the inside. They shaped me into a parasite, a tumor. I _wouldn’t_ be a child for them because they didn’t _deserve_ a child. Training to destroy people isn't for children,  _ love _ is for children, and what love I got was not from the Red Room,” she explained. “When Fury sent me to assess you, I knew what he would do to you if I told the truth, how he can manipulate. I know how to handle that, but you were just starting to recover from Stane. If Fury couldn't see and respect that from a short look at your file, he didn’t deserve you, and you didn’t deserve what he would have done to get you. So, I lied. I’m sorry.”

Steve had no idea what that was about but Tony was nodding. “I thought ‘textbook narcissist’ was a little shallow. I’m sorry I was such a dick of a boss. Sorry Steve,” he said looking up.

“No, that is anatomically accurate,” Natasha said. “You were very much a talking phallus when I was Natalie Rushman. I’m glad you and Pepper are happy together, you were such oblivious idiots. Well, you were, Pepper had some reasonable hesitation about the maturity gap. You were sort of like a child, and that would have been wrong.”

Tony laughed. “I’ve never been so happy to be insulted in my life. Thanks, Natasha.” She nodded and the moment was broken with the tiny clink of the plates with their cookies being set down.

<^>

Bucky cornered Darcy and Phil one night after dinner but before the board game they had picked out was fully set up. It was some murder mystery thing that had promise, in such a deductive group, but Bucky had a different mystery.

“I know what you’re doing,” he said.

“What do you mean?” Darcy asked him, while Phil kept a straight face.

“The talking. The little breakdowns that shine a light on what needs fixing. The way people treat each other differently. Natasha isn’t at all stiff around Clint anymore, Bruce was willing to bring Hulk out for some training. That didn’t happen on its own. Which one of you was responsible?”

Darcy quirked her brows. “That seems to imply the talking, fixing, kindness, and team bonding are bad things. Do you think those are bad things?”

“You know I don’t. But _ how  _ you’re doing it, it’s manipulative, Darcy. None of them know how hard you’ve been pushing their buttons. People aren’t puppets.”

“I understand,” Phil began, but Darcy cut him off.

“You really don’t, Phil,” she warned. Bucky watched the green flecks dance in her hazel eyes. “I know I’m using Red Room methods. That doesn’t make them wrong, and I think you’re underestimating the team.”

“Those methods are wrong by definition. You’re cracking people open like mason jars and pouring in what you want to see like it’s  _ soup.  _ You can’t just stick your hands in people’s brains and play, I won’t stand for it.”

“Then don’t. Sit down.” She marched him into the area appropriated for games. He sat sullenly on the love seat by the table. “Bucky has raised some concerns. They affect all of you if I go with his assessment, so I’m bringing it to you. First of all, awareness and consent. Raise your hand if you’ve noticed the non-combatants nudging you to places and situations where you talk about your pasts.” Every hand shot up. “Keep them up if you could have escaped that.” The hands stayed up. “Alright, so you knowingly allowed us to get you to open up. Hands up if you think that’s playing puppets with you, or manipulation.” The hands went down.

“Simmons cannot lie to save her life,” Natasha said. “If the terminally honest woman wants me to talk, it is because she is worried. And she makes good mocktails.”

“Agreed,” Pepper said. “I liked your virgin Scotch thing. It even tricked Tony the first time.”

“Thank you, it was really quite simple from a bio-chemical standpoint…”

“Shush, my smart summer child,” Tony said. “Never reveal your secrets. This preserves the magic of it.”

“All right,” Darcy began again. “What’s the general feeling on weekly therapy sessions with a psychiatrist?” The whole room tensed. Bucky could see Bruce readying to run, Tony covering his arc reactor, and Natasha and Clint reaching for weapons. “I’m going to take that as a no, possibly a hell no. All in favor of the non-combatants continuing to poke us into better mental health with fake booze, cookie recipes, and stress relief activities like board game night, movie night, and the Goldburg Tetris I know Skye gave Tony and Bruce?” Hands shot up again as the room relaxed.

Bucky eyed Darcy and Phil. “It doesn’t feel right. We learned these methods from the Red Room, the ways to unmake someone.”

“You aren’t unmaking me,” Clint said. “I know what that feels like, having someone in your head, playing with your brain. It sucks, and he was going easy on me. This isn’t that. This is having other people help put a puzzle back together. Yeah, they touch my mind in ways I might ordinarily not like, but they also make sure all the pieces are right side up and help me find that one stupid sky piece that always goes under the table. I like this. If I didn’t, this place has a good enough duct system you wouldn’t see me outside missions.”

“I don’t know about you, Buck, but I want to play the game,” Steve said. “You know you could have talked to me first.”

“No he couldn’t,” Natasha defended. “We learned in ways you can’t forget that the people closest to you are in the best place to stab your back. He was covering yours.”

“And I’m glad he was,” Darcy said, giving Steve a quick peck before settling on the floor in front of Bucky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Pauk: Spider (Russian)  
> Dead drop: a method spies use to transfer information covertly.  
> Swapper: Skye's nickname for Darcy.  
> Natka: a child-form of the name Natalia.   
> Off play: against the plan.  
> Mason jars: a popular home-canning system in use in the Depression and during rationing.
> 
> Notes:  
> It can be very difficult to get a trauma survivor to talk about it. Phil has an advantage in being trained to know when and how to extract information, in this case, so Darcy could talk about her issues. Darcy herself makes good points about organic decisions to talk, versus structured therapy, and is right, certain traumas can be re-victimizing to discuss under pressure.
> 
> "What’s the sitch?" was the catchphrase of cartoon teen spy Kim Possible, used when in contact with her hidden, indoor only, handler, Wade.
> 
> Tim Gunn worked on Project Runway, and when confronted with a clothing design he did not think would work, rather than reprimand designers, he would say 'make it work'.
> 
> I don't know how an AI would perceive and handle psychological trauma, but I would assume having large chucks of infrastructure destroyed and his creator, his dad, fly a suicide mission did Jarvis no good.
> 
> Simmons is canonically a horrible liar in Season One of Agents of SHIELD. This changed by Season two, but we are nowhere near that now, so her hints are more like a clue-by-four.
> 
> If you were wondering, I have an image of the Bunker as being vaguely like Fallout 4 in aesthetic choice, in that it is retro in style, having been built in the Cold War, and also designed to survive nuclear winter.
> 
> Clint is making Italian meatball cookies, a Christmas staple that combines chocolate and spice cookie elements, a good recipe is here: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/10214/meatball-cookies/
> 
> Natasha is too good a spy to fall for Tony's public facade, and under the social armor, he's NOT a narcissist, textbook or otherwise. In fact, from his behavior during her on screen interactions, I would say adult survivor of childhood abuse with slightly abnormal fawn response in the form of wildly outlandish giving.
> 
> The game is Clue, which came out after the war, but would indeed be fun to play with that group, although I think handicaps would need to come into play as the group learns it.
> 
> Psychological manipulation is not as inherently bad as Bucky sees it, because he's only seen it used to hurt people. The key to knowing when it's wrong and when it's not is to gauge if the person is aware of the nudging, and capable of avoiding them. Generally if the answer to those is yes, it's not morally wrong. In this case it is less harmful, and the team knows it, than blunt therapy.
> 
> Goldburg Tetris is a hypothetical alteration to the classic block-stacking game Tetris using gravity and air resistance modifications like The Incredible Machine used to make creating Rube Goldburg devices more challenging. The idea came from Ysabetwordsmith on Ao3, specifically the Love is For Children series. 
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “You know the HULK?” Colin asked, awed.  
> “Detki, Bruce made the Hulk.”  
> “You’re Hulk’s Da?”


	24. Bunker Shenanigans Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Avengers are introduced to the concept of Code Chartreuse. The Meaning of Monsters is discussed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Potential headspace issue: Bruce has some serious bad tape left over from his Dad and General Ass-Face. This interacts badly with Natasha's reclaiming of the word Monster, resulting in an argument and a stilted apology due to lack of experience apologizing for emotional damages. Additionally, Bruce's status as, effectively, a single father of the world's most massive 7 year old is brought up. Bruce IS getting better at not abusing his child-alter, but he's now having his former treatment of Hulk thrown into sharp relief. Please mind your headspace and read responsibly.

“So, what’s with the GQ, guys?” Darcy asked, raising a brow as Clint skipped merrily into the room after Jarvis had alerted them all to Phil calling a General Quarters. “We don’t have incoming, do we? I mean, not if Barton’s skipping, we don’t.”

“We do, of a sort,” Phil looked… almost uncomfortable, “Nat, Why don’t you take it?”

“Ciara’s boys, the ones we had look after Loki? They’re coming to visit!”

“Visit a super secure facility we aren’t even supposed to tell most of SHIELD about?” Darcy asked, looking at the secret agents like they’d all grown extra appendages. “I thought they were preschoolers?”

“It’s… really better if we show you,” Phil said. He gestured to where Natasha was connecting her StarkPad to the television. Security footage began to play and Clint passed Natasha a large bowl of popcorn. While the video was entirely cut from SHIELD’s security cameras, the editing would have been more at home on a home video than security footage from an elite intelligence agency. 

“Oh. My. God.” Darcy gasped at watching clip after clip of highly trained agents being taken down. “Look  _ down _ you idiots! I know you’re evil, but come on! They’re BABIES. Fuckballs, we’re locked in a battle of wits with unarmed men.”

“That’s how Fury reacted,” Phil said mildly.

“I don’t like the looks of that guy,” Bruce said softly. “Hulk feels…  _ active _ when I look at him.”

“That’s former Agent Daniels,” Clint said around a mouthful of popcorn as the screen showed blurs of shrieking blue and green tackle the would-be saboteur to the ground. “Don’t worry, NatNat took care of him later.”

“I’m glad you’re listening to Hulk, though,” Darcy said, giving Bruce a friendly smile. “He’s got better threat assessment, probably because he’s not a scientist. No offence Jane.”

“None taken,” Jane said, swiping some of Clint’s popcorn.

“That's a GOOD catapult,” Tony said, tracing lines of angle and tension in the air, hands moving in such a way that everyone knew why he’d invented the solid hologram system Jarvis used. 

Nat just grinned at everyone’s reactions. By the end, Thor was doubled over laughing and Bucky and Steve weren’t much better. Jane and Bruce were chortling, FitzSimmons were identifying who had made which of the twins’ toys and what could have been done better, Skye looked wistful, and Pepper was trying to keep Tony from designing New And Better Toys.

Phil cleared his throat, “There’s one more incident you should know about, but we have no footage of, as it did not take place on base. Early February 2011, Fury was… scolded by the Council for keeping at least two people capable of handling the twins at HQ at all times. So he sent us all out. I’m sending you Carter’s report on the 48 hours that followed.” 

He waited in silence as the assembled company began to read. 

“This report is why the Harrow twins are not EVER to be without approved supervision. As the agents still at HQ have been sent out again, and we have enough downtime here to take the boys until their mother returns tomorrow, Fury is dropping them off on his way to Japan. If we leave within 20 minutes, we’ll get there on time.”

It took no time at all to pick a team to go get the boys and a team to stay and vaguely childproof the bunker. Nat, Clint, Tony, Darcy, and Phil loaded into the SUV, Bucky hopped on Rita as their scout, and they were off. Half an hour’s drive through the desert, and they arrived at the designated point, just as a quinjet landed in front of them.

While Coulson and the twins transferred the boys’ supplies and toys from the Quinjet to the Avengers’ SUV and installed their booster seats, the other adults converged on Fury.

“I’m glad you can take them. Ciara’s been on mission since the night before last and the Grandparents took them for the day yesterday, but none of the others can do more than twenty four hours in a row and I’m needed for a meeting in Tokyo,” Fury explained. Nat paled.

“Grandparents?” Tony asked, blinking at the unflappable becoming flapped.

“Adoptive,” Clint clarified. “Frank Moses and Marvin Boggs, CIA; Victoria, MI6; Ivan Siminov, KGB; Peggy Carter and Fury. The rest of us are uncles and aunts.”

“Victoria is Peggy’s cousin, turns out. Which explains Everything,” Nat said, clearly pronouncing the capital letter. “What happened? I didn’t hear of any riots or toppled governments.”

“We took them out paintballing in the woods,” Fury sighed. “Turns out, they can tell sport hunters from food hunters and  _ really _ don’t like the former.”

“Forget about that, I’m still stuck on the list of grandparents,” Bucky said. “Isn’t Boggs the guy that…”

“Yes,” Nat answered, “The first time, anyway. Moses did the other one.”

Tony waved a hand as if the spy discussion and the inside references were smoke to be cleared. “Wait. I’m still curious... what’d they do to the sport hunters?”

Fury sighed gustily, exasperated, “What  _ didn’t _ they do? Triggered traps, laid new ones for the  _ hunters _ , shot them in the back with paintballs, shot them in the face with paint arrows, dropped whole cans of paint on them, circled their nests with paint bombs, Counting Coup… I gave up after the fourth one I had to cut down from over fifty feet up a tree. Victoria was laughing her ass off. Peggy at least kept her snickers quiet.” With that, Fury summoned all his dignity, turned on his heel and went back into the quinjet, just as Coulson unloaded the last of the Twin’s things.

<^>

When they arrived back at the Bunker, it was to the full complement waiting to meet their visitors. Clint grinned, “Buachailli, why don’t you ask NatMonster to help you take your armory to the living room?”

“Nat is not a monster,” Bruce interjected, as though offended by the mere thought.

Everything stopped as the boys stilled and glared dangerously.

"YES. SHE. IS.” Colin argued hotly, “NatMonster is the BEST monster! She's bigger an' badder an' scarier than all the other monsters, COMBINED. And she's OURS. All the other monsters are scared of NatMonster."

Caddell marched up to Bruce and poked him in the belly, hard. “Don’t you be a meaniebutt and try and make her be,” he struggled for a word for what he meant, “Unmonsterfied!”

Colin was violently cuddling Tasha’s face and petting her hair “soothingly” and Caddell joined him, wrapping himself around her leg. “Don’t you believe him, NatMonster. He’s jus’ bein’ mean.”

“Or stupid,” Colin finished, glaring at Bruce, who looked dumbfounded, and slightly guilty.

“No one’s going to make Nat be anything she doesn’t want to be,” Pepper soothed, though her confusion about their anger was clear, “I’m sure Bruce didn’t understand you meant a  _ good _ monster.”

The boys glared for a moment longer then sniffed haughtily, and proceeded like nothing had happened. “Come on, NatMonster, Let’s put our weapons away prop’ly.”

“Excellent idea. I want you to strip and check your weapons, too. We can’t play if there’s anything wrong with them.”

When they were gone, the entire group turned to Clint.

“What just happened?” Steve asked

“Which part? Almost-four year olds maintaining their own armories and putting toys away, or Tasha being their NatMonster?” Steve gave Clint a flat look at the question. Barton sighed. “Have you ever seen Monsters Inc? Nat is Sully, Rumlow is Randall.”

“Does that make you Mike Wazowski?” Tony asked slyly.

“Yes, yes it does. As for the armory….” Clint shrugged, “They’re Scottish sons of a Scottish agent, spend all their time around agents, and are the mascots of three divisions of SHIELD: Security, Communications, and SciDiv. Their mother firmly believes that toy weapons should be treated with the same respect as real ones, and Nat and I support that. Thus, toy weapons, both old fashioned and new from SciDiv, and com units with their own channel and one they can reach their adults on from Security. Both of which we walk them through maintaining properly. The Chatterbox gave them storage for everything and places to stash their armories.”

“Armories, plural… there’s more?” Pepper asked, looking at the four crates remaining.

“Yeah, this is only about half of what they have. Two and a half years of near weekly gifts from SciDiv and Nat and me and Coulson and….They are well liked by the non squidly SHIELD. And they almost never act spoiled about it. Which actually gets them  _ more _ . This is just the part they kept at SHIELD, they have at  _ least _ as much at home.”

“I want someone to give me cool new weapons every week,” Bucky pouted.

<^>

Jane liked the Harrow boys. They didn’t fuss about her random interludes and they never messed up her notes. She also approved of how they protected Natasha, especially from Bruce’s overabundant negativity about monsters. She wanted to like Bruce, she’d had a huge Science Squish on him since she read his papers in her doctoral studies year, but it was hard when he didn’t like Hulk, who was her friend. Fortunately, twin glares and insistence that monsters could be good had put a dent in his bad tape, and she was more than happy to help the process along when she saw him moping in their shared lab.

“You realize this is how we feel when we bring up Hulk, right?”

“What?” he asked, seeming confused.

“That confused, sort of guilty thing. It’s how we feel when you get snarly because we happen to like Hulk. I want to be your friend, too, Bruce, but when I talk about Hulk, or ask if you can relay a message or bring him out to hang out with me, you look like…” she waved a hand at the door in reference to the conspicuously absent Twins. “It doesn’t feel good.”

“I’m sorry, Jane,” Bruce said.

“Don’t say it if you don’t mean it,” Jane replied. “If you mean it, you can show it.”

“I’m not ready to bring Hulk out on purpose yet,” he whispered. “It feels like dying.”

“Oh. You could have said that the  _ first _ time I asked. Well, why don’t you show it by apologizing to Nat? If you do it in front of the boys, they’ll probably forgive you if she does.”

“I… Can I? Could I actually just.... Say sorry?”

“Four year olds are notoriously forgiving, and Natasha will see what you’re doing.” Jane thought for a moment. “Try telling Nat you’re trying to get better. Kids understand learning. It’s why I like Hulk so much.”

“I’ll try,” Bruce gulped.

Bruce steeled himself, like a man on a mission. He was, sort of, and in unknown and potentially hostile territory. However, the problem would only persist unless one or more variables changed, and he could only change himself. The common room had begun as barely better than a barracks, but Tony’s sense of comfort and Steve’s sense of hominess had altered it with sofas and tables and curtains over trompe l'oeil windows. Currently, said sofas and tables held a plastic and foam arsenal, and three people with stony looks and matching monster hoodies.

“Um, I came to say something to Nat,” Bruce started. The one in the green hoodie jumped up between Nat and Bruce, wielding a foam sword in a menacing way that was far too effective for a child.

“You gunna be nice?”

“I want to say I’m sorry. Jane is helping me figure some stuff out, and… I’m sorry my issues spilled on you, Natasha. It’s not appropriate to tell you how you should see yourself, or how you should see a label like that. How do I fix the mistake?”

“You’re still figuring out how to get the red out of your ledger,” Nat said, seeming to get it. “I’ll forgive you, this time, but I want to see you working on the Hulk thing.”

“You know the HULK?” Colin asked, awed.

“Detki, Bruce  _ made _ the Hulk.”

“You’re Hulk’s  **_Da_ ** ?”

“Um.” Bruce ran a hand through his hair and took a deep meditative breath. He really understood Tony’s complaints about fame now, this was extremely awkward. “Sort of? It wasn’t a great situation to try to raise a kid in. I messed up a lot. I’m trying to learn to be better. Natasha… NatMonster and Darcy are helping.”

Natasha beamed as he used the nickname, even if it stuck in his throat a bit. Worth it, he decided. ”I’m sorry about the monster thing. I’ve only known bad monsters, I didn’t know there could be good ones, too.”

“What do you think Hulk IS?” Colin was baffled, “DUH.”

Caddell shushed Colin, “You is learning. People mess up when they is learning, it’s how learning happens. Now you know better. We forgive you too.”

“Good. That’s good,” Bruce said, a little overwhelmed. He was still adapting to people being nice to him, especially after knowing about Hulk. “ **Small ones are good** ,” Hulk said in the back of his head. Bruce shook himself, trying to get back his own body. Hulk wasn’t pushing to get out, but the talking still was… odd. “Um. I’ll be in the lab working on some of the equipment we took away from the last raid, and dinner is pot pies. Beef or chicken. Bye.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations  
> GQ: General Quarters, a condition of readiness for combat or other incoming hazards.  
> Buachailli: boys (Scots Gaelic)  
> trompe l'oeil: literally 'fool the eye', an optical illusion
> 
> Notes  
> The videos and files watched in the briefing are the chapters of Out Of Time dedicated to the Boys. You can read them in the previous work in this series.
> 
> Frank, Marvin, Victoria, and Ivan are all members of the RED team. (An amazing movie about retired special agents.)
> 
> The definition of "monster" the boys use is "scary-capable badass". The definition Natasha uses is "person capable of doing the hard or morally damaging task if necessary". The definition Bruce uses is "one who deviates from normal physical characteristics or acceptable behavior" (the dictionary definition). By the first two Nat-Nat is DEFINITELY a Monster and one of the best at that. By the third... the only person Bruce would label a monster is Hulk.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “Hide and seek?” Nat asked excitedly, “Our version?”  
> “Da. I was thinking Foks i Medved,” he said.


	25. Bunker Shenanigans Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Avengers play Hide and Seek with the Harrows.

Thor was choking, trying not to laugh at the tiny, serious warriors. He wasn’t succeeding very well. Finally, he gave up and let his face assume an apologetic look. “You are very valiant, young ones. I am reminded of my brother, he had a similar fierceness whenever someone told Lady Sigyn to return to sewing. Of course, Sigyn often defended herself, but I think she and Lady Natasha enjoy the gallantry at times, as well.”

“I do,” Natasha told him with one of her rare relaxed smiles. “Speaking of your brother, how was he doing, moya detskiy monstry?”

“Loki is nice,” Caddell asserted firmly. “He teaches and he never ever lies to us.”

Colin grabbed Caddell’s hand, “Look!” and they shifted out of focus.

“Fury will blow his lid,” Natasha remarked blandly as Thor choked on the last sip of his cream soda. “Although Coup will be muuuch more fun now.”

“Coup?”

“Issa game,” said a mint-colored mist. “Like tag, but better. You gotta touch Agents without them seein’. They’re learning to play better, we only gots two hunnert and fifty seven points last time.”

“And all your Uncas feel much safer because of that,” Nat said with a grin.

“So we’ve got to learn to play better too,” the mist replied… in flawless, if childishly pronounced, Asgardian. Thor blinked.

“Has my brother taught you our language so quickly?” he asked, smoothing down the All-speak to reply in the same language. He’d never been as good at turning off the powers of translation as Loki, but then, his role was to be understood, and before their father had started twisting how people treated his youngest son, Loki’s role was planned to be as spymaster, where secrets were life.

The boys shifted back into focus, looking like they’d got caught stealing sweets by an irritated cook. “No...not on purpose….” They fidgeted nervously.

The twins looked at Nat, pleadingly.

Thor looked at Nat, confusedly.

Nat sighed.

“Ciara told me… under the effects of a very long mission and half my emergency stash of medical vodka, by the way,” Nat began, seeming reluctant. Her words had the air of someone relaying what may or may not be a secret, with no time to get permission first. “She said that many generations ago, several Alfar … were disinclined to acquiesce to Odin’s request that they leave Midgard, and chose to settle down here instead, joining a few of Scotland’s Clans and having children with the humans they surrounded themselves with. Now, each of those clans has a gift, something the Alfar who sired them had. For the clan Ciara’s mother came from, that gift was learning any language within moments of experiencing it.”

“We could hear the language under the magic language when he spoke.” Caddell said softly.

“We’re sorry,” Colin added softly.

Thor shook off his surprise and laughed, “Wherefore, small ones? You are what you are, and there is no shame in using a gift you have so mightily. I am merely surprised that both gift and knowledge of whence it comes have continued so long after my father gave that order.”

The boys cheered significantly, and Thor spared a thought for his brother; it was such a small thing to say such words, yet how much of Loki’s pain could have been avoided had Odin taken the time to say them, when even these merry two could be so thwarted without them, and so gladdened by them?

His introspection did not last long, as Bucky and Skye came into the room, grinning.

“Papa?” Nat asked warily, he clearly had an  _ idea _ , and ideas that made the men in Nat’s life grin like that weren’t often wise ones.

Colin and Caddell stared at Bucky owlishly. “You’re NatMonster’s DA?” Caddell asked in wonder.

“But you aren’t  _ old _ like the Grandparents!” Colin blurted and slapped a hand over his mouth, blushing.

Bucky and Nat chuckled. “Ya starshe, chem vyglyazhu, malen'kiye monstry,” he answered playfully. “Have you checked and cleaned all your weapons yet?”

“Yes,” Colin answered. “Why?

“Lunch is an hour away, and I thought we could gather up your Unca Clint and a few others and play a game I taught NatMonster when she was your size.”

“Hide and seek?” Nat asked excitedly, “Our version?”

“Da. I was thinking Foks i Medved,” he said. 

<^>

Soon, the Fox Team was gathered in their den, Bucky, Darcy, and Steve’s room, planning how to evade the Bear Team and steal the prize from their den, located in the kitchen. The Bears were much better armed with paintballs, but they had no idea which direction the Foxes would attack from. Meanwhile, the Foxes were allowed to use air ducts to get to the prize, but if they got tagged, they had to go hide, unfound and not moving, until Jarvis told them a minute and a half was up.

“Understand the rules?” Bucky asked the Foxes

“Yuh huh,” they agreed, and the game began. That was the other advantage of Foxes, they started the game when they felt like it, not when the Bears were ready.

Skye was the first bear to go down, taking a ball of paint in the throat before she could sound the alarm, but not before she finished arming a trap that sent Darcy into hiding.

Clint had obviously spent the prep-time rigging the vents in the kitchen with paint, because the sounds of “Not fair!” and “I will dismember you, Barton” rang through the entire base before Nat and Colin spent their hiding time in the laundry, switching his shirt for one less-likely to spread paint everywhere.

Bucky and Darcy regrouped and took out Coulson together, sending him to sit with Skye in the common room after a short but intense paint-filled firefight outside the utilities closet for the kitchen level. Darcy continued on to tag Clint, but took her own paintball to the tush at Steve’s hands. Meanwhile, Bucky and Thor were locked in a stalemate in the dining area, because while Bucky was very good at what he did, he wasn’t quite as flexible as the usual vent-climbers anymore, and Thor was accustomed to a sparring partner who refused to stand still and fight power versus power.

The game ended with Nat and Steve almost at each other’s throats, and Jarvis ringing a bell.

“We gots the prize!” Colin cheered. “We handwalked over the paint bits, then magicked the vent locks when we couldn’t pop ‘em from inside without bein’ loud.”

“Well, we never said they couldn’t,” Darcy allowed.

“When did you learn magic?” Phil asked, wiping the last of the paint from behind his ear.

“Loki taught us when we went to check on him!” Colin piped up.

“We like him,” Caddell agreed. “But we hafta be touching, or it won’t work, right nows anyway. We’re still learning.”

“Aw, yeah,” Clint cheered, “Counting Coup is going to be FUN next time.”

“Next time is MY turn,” Natasha reminded him. Clint’s face fell.

“Round 2?” Bucky smirked, “We still have half an hour or so.”

“Perhaps we should change up the teams this time,” Darcy suggested, “So no one is with their usual partner and everybody is equally limited.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Coulson agreed, thinking of the boys working magic again, Fury was going to have a field day.

Darcy and Phil split them up into Foxes: Nat, Caddell, Steve, Skye and Darcy, and Bears: Bucky, Colin, Clint, Coulson and Thor. The battles joined faster this time, swift, brutal strikes from all directions hit the kitchen in five minutes of each other. Mines detonated on the incoming Foxes to the loud protests of the victims. A short recess was called, a ruling allowing the mines unless disallowed before later games was passed to all players by Jarvis, and the game continued. Skye took out Bucky in a sacrifice play that got Caddell too, by accident. The two went to find a hiding spot, and Darcy used Bucky’s absence to distract Thor by probing the weak south wall of the kitchen he was guarding alone.

Colin got Steve when he was out of line of sight by bouncing a marble off of the walls to hit and shatter on Steve’s back. Steve had to have Jarvis play the video of that back to him, twice. Once to see what got him, once to comprehend it. 

After Colin’s mathematically improbable shot on Steve was properly celebrated, with Jarvis playing a happy video game trill, the hidden teams were all able to return, which led to an interesting double-back as Colin, fresh from his win, tagged his brother exiting the recycle room. Skye managed to avoid the hit, and on Caddell’s request went to inform Darcy.

“It was weird, Boss-Lady,” Skye said as she re-armed beside Darcy behind a half-open door. “Like he was waiting for us. And my little buddy seemed really upset. Should we send Nat to check in on him?”

The question, it turned out, was moot, as the next moment resulted in a wave of shouts and muffled cursing from the kitchen. Caddell reappeared holding a plastic jar covered in brightly colored bug stickers and grumbling about Colin cheating.

“What’s the jar?” Darcy asked warily as Skye asked, “How’d he cheat?”

“He was peeking when we were picking a hiding spot,” he said cryptically. “So I got the robot bugs from Doctor Stylet and let them out.”

Now that they were looking closely, some of the stickers were actually diagrams of realistic bug bodies made out of metal and plastic.

“Um. Nat?” Darcy called. “Doesn’t Clint have a… thing, about bugs?”

“Hence the screaming,” Nat’s voice said from a duct. “Nobody from our side is in the vents, da?”

“Except you, yeah, we’re out of the walls.”

“I think some little bear cub has found his way into the fox tunnels,” Nat said, just as cryptic as Caddell’s earlier statement about peeking. “Everyone scatter, and stay away from vents.”

Darcy turned to reroute her team to a strategic retreat, but Caddell was already down the hall, and too far away for her to stop the dangling rattlesnake from falling from the vent, onto the helpless boy’s head. He screamed. Her heart froze. He threw the snake in a wild thrashing motion. It sailed through the air. Darcy came back into control of her own body just long enough to scream “holy shitballs!” before being struck in the face.

“Jarvis, full pause!” someone shouted. Darcy spat a mouthful of rubberized skin from the robo snake onto the floor.

“Okay, new rule involving use of animatronics. And psy-ops. Namely, don’t.”

“Agreed,” Clint said, still shaking as Coulson picked bug bits out of his hair. “If nothing else, it breaks your toys, and you know what your Mam’s rule about that is.”

“You break it, you buy it,” both boys sighed in unison.

“Might I suggest a break for lunch?” Jarvis put in, “Biosensors indicate you are all showing signs of low blood sugar.”

<^>

As the Avengers gathered in the dining room for lunch and various conversations began, Thor turned to Nat for his own. “You said  _ most _ of the Alfar are gone now?” he asked. “Not all?”

“Yeah,” Tasha responded, “There’s one the Scots and British call Robin Goodfellow, often called Puck that’s still around.”

“Puck! I know this character! He’s a trickster who made life interesting for many years.”

“He’s been quieter in recent years,” Nat sighed and raised an eyebrow, as a tall, thin man with light auburn hair and merry, green eyes, and pointed ears faded into view behind her and began gleefully rearranging her hair, “but that’s what he’s known for here, too.”

Nat took a bite of her sandwich exactly as if nothing had happened and her hair wasn’t sticking up everywhere, as Robin made his way around the table. He paused behind Tony, peered at him a moment then dropped a pair of rose gold and rose quartz glasses on his nose and patted him fondly on the head. Tony’s tension eased, even though he knew he looked like the seventies had hit him upside the head and reverse-mugged him. Pepper relaxed just a smidge, too, simply because Tony did, which got her a very pretty RED (not purple, thank goodness) flower in her hair, which was suddenly more mussed than it had ever been. Behind Thor, Robin grinned, and when he moved on, Thor had half a dozen leaves very thoroughly tangled into his hair, just out of easy reach, with two poking up like bunny ears.

As he reached for Darcy’s silky-looking hair, she put down her glass and raised one eyebrow at him. Goodfellow’s eyes went wide and he disappeared, leaving a chocolate coin for each of the twins. The twins stared at her.

“NatMonster is still the BEST Monster, but you…. You is also a really good GoodMonster,” Caddell said in awe.

“DarcyMonster,” Colin announced firmly, and turned back to his peanut butter and jelly.

Blinking a bit at the sudden feeling of being adopted by four year olds, Darcy turned to Thor. And giggled. He really did look ridiculous with leaves all through his hair and poking up like ears. Pulling out her phone, she took a picture to show Loki when they got back.

“Speaking of tricksters,” she said, “Loki. Spill.”

“What do you wish to know?” Thor asked, seeming bewildered.

“Well, I see it that he and I have pretty firmly adopted each other, and I managed to miss all of his embarrassing kid stories!” Darcy said, appalled at this oversight of the Universe. 

“Tell us about when he was little and fierce like us!” Colin prompted eagerly, Loki was already a favorite, and learning that he had been like them when little only increased his prominence.

Thor began weaving a tale of pranks, cutting remarks, and other sneaky forms of valor, to the rapt attention of the Twins. However, after a certain number of starts and halts over Thor’s language, which the Twins could apparently understand just fine, Darcy’s attention wandered to the rest of her people. She wasn’t quite doing headcounts every five minutes, but it was reassuring to look around the table at the rest of her family.

“Most of the scientists are rather….proprietary about their designs,” Clint was saying to Bucky, “but I suspect that Tony could retro-engineer the plans for them and make some for us. It’s training tools and toys, not weapons. If not, well, they take gossip as bribes. I’ll have a word with them, if you want. But first, see if the boys will give one or two of each to Tony to copy. Lord knows he could use something fun to study and improve on. Probably make a suit that uses the things while he’s at it...if he doesn’t make such suits for the boys first.”

The genius in question appeared to have his own argument going on with Steve about the impressive bank-shot earlier.

“Tony,” Steve was arguing, “He’s  _ four _ , he didn’t do the math, he just  _ did _ it.”

“Colin,” Tony turned, “When you threw the paint bomb at Steve, how’d you know how to do it?”

“They splatter after so many bounces dependin’ on how hard you throw. Too hard an they splatter you, not hard enough an they won’t splatter. Just right, an they bounce around and splatter on someone else. So’s I know how many bounces they’ll make before they pop, dependin’ on how hard I throw it.”

“How many bounces is that?”

“If I throw it the same as I did at Steve? Can ye no’ count? Three an a half,” Colin said. “Three walls and a Steve.”

Steve blushed, and Darcy about died laughing.

Tony ignored both and thought for a moment, “So simplified math crossed with instinctual physics. Still pretty good for anyone under 12.”

Colin beamed, then frowned. “What’s fizziks?”

“If I may, sir?” Jarvis stepped in. “Physics is the rules and math that decide how everything in the universe interacts. Like how many bounces your paint bombs can make before splattering under how much force. Figuring out the math is an important part of what engineers and scientists like Tony, Bruce, and Jane do.”

“Physics and math is also a lot of what Clint and I do,” Bucky added, “because they determine how far and where our shots go.”

Colin’s brow furrowed and his lips pursed and twitched to the side. “How old d’ye hev t’ be t’ learn fizzicks?”

Tony laughed, “You’re already learning physics.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Moya detskiy monstry: My baby monsters (Russian)  
> Ya starshe, chem vyglyazhu, malen'kiye monstry: I'm older than I look, little monsters (Russian)  
> Foks i Medved: Foxes and Bears
> 
> Notes:  
> Sigyn is (in the Eddas) the Goddess of Truth and the wife of Loki. In this 'verse she's a healer-in-training (against the wishes of her father who wanted her to be a typical noble wife and do... not much. Loki has been crushing on her for at LEAST a thousand years.
> 
> The twins play Counting Coup as a game for them, training exercise for the Agents. Clint and Nat take turns as the twins' handler for it, hence Clint's dismay that next time is Nat's turn. There's more on Coup in the Out of Time story.
> 
> Fox and Bear is an asymmetric warfare training tool, but it's also just plain fun to do, especially with kids. Nat has fond memories of it for a reason, for all that it's Spy Class 101.
> 
> The twins have a limited form of telepathy where they share what they're seeing. Colin used that to suss out where Caddell was hiding, which he saw as effective use of resources, and Caddell sees as cheating. Hence robo-bugs and Colin escalating with a robo-snake.
> 
> Puck is a character in William Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. Highly chaotic, he does tend to play favorites with mortals he finds amusing.
> 
> Shakespeare mentioned a number of flowers in his work, but the most common was violets (which are purple), symbolizing early and innocent death. The flower which caused most of the shenanigans of Midsummer Night's Dream was Love-in-Idleness, aka a purple pansy. Thus, we're VERY glad the flower he gives Pepper is the Caballero Dahlia. Lots of blood red petals that have gold-yellow edges. It's a very Iron Man flower and not going to cause or foreshadow anything bad. 
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “Hulk appears to believe that as I can access most of the world through the internet, I am approximately planet-sized,” Jarvis informed him, a thin thread of humor under it. “I have agreed to be represented as only slightly larger than him, in deference to perspective and the lack of planet-sized paper available.”


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The second half of the day has weapon training, finger painting, and pillowforts with friends.

“Tell me, young ones,” Thor said, as he finished his sandwich, “You have many weapons, but which are your favorite?”

Colin thought a moment, “Well, that depends. Which category do you mean?”

Caddell swallowed his mouthful, “I like bows more, and Colin likes crossbows more, but guns best, cuz he cannae pull a bow strong enough fer the longer ranges.”

Colin nodded along with his brother, and then took up the thread, “And I like the claymore better, while Caddell prefers the zweihander.”

“And we both like axes, but dual-wielded long-knives are more fun.”

“Have you ever used a hammer?” Thor asked.

Caddell shook his head, “Mama says they’re hard to learn right cuz without the weight you aren’t  _ learning, _ but they can’t be...be…” Caddell struggled for the word, so Colin made one up that fit. “Unleathalized.”

Thor laughed. “I will not be damaged by that which you can lift. Why don’t you finish your lunches, and then show me what you know with the weapons you have, and then I shall teach you hammers. But thy mother is right, you should not practice with those who can be damaged by what you use.”

In the gym, the boys opened their war chests and carefully laid out the pre-schooler sized weapons they wanted to use: bows and arrows, a repeating crossbow, a claymore and a zweihander, two pairs of long knives, sixteen throwing knives, two short swords, two broadswords, a war axe and a walking axe, and two throwing axes.

Tony looked at the collection for a moment, grinned suddenly, and quickly left the room.

Bucky and Thor waited to be their practice-dummies,taking weapons from what the boys left in the chests, and the others filled in the sides to watch.

“What d’ye wan’ t’ see first?” Colin asked. 

“Why don’t you start with short swords, work your way up to the axes, then do ranged and long knives,” Clint suggested, and both boys nodded solemnly, picking their short swords up.

Then, with a brief glance at each other and no other warning given, they attacked.

It was quickly evident that while the boys were clearly trained by the same people, they did not have the same styles at all, even when using the same weapons. Colin dove in between Thor and Bucky and engaged both, while Caddell stayed outside, circling them and diving in to attack whenever they focused too much on Colin, only to retreat whenever they turned towards him, giving Colin an opening. It was a rather effective strategy.

Jane watched the playing, and watched as Thor became more thoughtful and deliberate -- and laughed less -- with a growing sense of unease, though she couldn’t have said what was wrong. Until, that is, Colin wielded his walking axe and Caddell had long knives in hand. She and Darcy had the same epiphany simultaneously.

Colin fought like Thor, Caddell like Loki, but the teamwork was seamless, they always knew where the other was without looking and drove the men into each other’s weapons. Thor wasn’t laughing because THIS was what he and Loki should have been, likely were before Odin began being a royal twit. Jane was angry. She wasn’t unfamiliar with it, but it wasn’t common she felt it quite this strongly either. This was Darcy-levels of anger. Why? WHY couldn’t Odin at least have let them be? Why did he have to go and break them? He could have had a devoted team working together for his benefit and he shattered it. She wanted to cuddle Thor for a century. Maybe six. 

“I’m going to kick Odin,” Darcy said calmly, in that dreamy voice that scared sensible people. “Hard. Maybe in the nuts. Thoughts, Jane?”

“Find a way to do it where he can’t tell anyone you did it or he’ll look bad,” Jane said. Hey, nobody ever said she wasn’t also scary.

After a while, the Twins were beginning to actually put a dent in their seemingly boundless energy, if only because Bucky and Thor tended to have higher thresholds for exhaustion themselves, and Steve had jumped in once when Bucky started to slip in his conditioning and needed a rest. The Twins had seemed perplexed by an adult needing Nap Time, but accepting of Steve as a substitute target.

“Prince Thor,” Jarvis interrupted as Steve started to falter a bit, “Miss Lewis has requested your assistance in removing Doctor Foster from her lab for rest, as she plans to watch an astrological phenomena later tonight.”

“Tell her I shall be with her momentarily,” Thor said graciously. “I fear our training for today must end, Little Warriors. My Lady Jane needs to rest, and as all siedkonurs and siedmadrs, tends to forget she is yet mortal and susceptible to things like exhaustion.”

“So, what next?” Bruce asked. They looked at him with interest. Maybe he shouldn’t have asked.

<^>

Hulk liked Teeny Monsters. The Teeny Monsters liked Hulk. Puny Banner was scared of the Teeny Monsters, because he is a silly. But dealing with things that scare Puny Banner is Hulk’s job, so when the Teeny Monsters asked to see him, Hulk came out. Pushing out into Real was hard, and Puny Banner fought him, with worryworryworry. **Hulk not hurt Teeny Monsters,** Hulk snorted at Puny Banner. 

“Teeny Monsters are good monsters,” he told them, which got a big grin from Green Teeny Monster. Big as his whole face, even though that wasn’t very big for Hulk, it was REALLY big for the Teeny Monsters. “What Teeny Monsters want Hulk for?”

“We wanted to play,” Colin said, climbing up Hulk to his shoulder. “You don’ get to play, much, and NatMonster says we’re experts at helping people play when they don’t know how.”

Hulk liked playing, Tiny Jane played gunball with him, it was fun, except when meanies try to hurt Tiny Jane. No meanies here, Hulk checked.

Caddell, meanwhile, was helping Clint unpack a crate of paint bombs, old work shirts which hung on the boys like dresses, and a roll of butcher paper from the kitchen. Colin helped by rolling it out across the floor of the gym.

“We paints!” Caddell explained with a cheer.

“Paints?” Hulk asked. New play meant new words, and Hulk needed new words explained. He liked new words though.

“Ye make pretties on the paper with colored goopy stuff called paint,” Colin said.

“Here,” Caddell handed him a small colored ball, “Squish it.”

Hulk picked up the ball in two fingers, looked at it. Like a berry, and berries have bright juice. Hulk liked juice, but some is bad taste, make sick, Puny Banner worryworryworry. So Hulk popped the berry to smell. Not good smell, but pretty juice. Not for eating, for pretty. Hulk smiled. “Paints. Good paints. Smash paintberry and draw?”

“Yes!” Colin encouraged, hopping down to get his paint shirt on and shoes off.

Hulk watched curiously as the Teeny Monsters smashed the paintberries and used their fingers to make the pretty juices make patterns on the paper, then, experimentally, wiped the paints from his paintberry on the paper like they were.

The paintberry juice left a nice clean stream of blue on the paper. Hulk grinned and carefully selected a green-yellow paintberry. He made new-growing shapes at the edge of his stream. Then he took a purple-pink-dust color and smashed it over the paper, letting splatters make flowers. “Smash pretty!”

Teeny Monsters grinned.

Colin rolled dozens of the paint bombs out on the paper and began doing a jig on them, leaving a rainbow of splatters and footprints across his end of the paper. Caddell used his hands to make a SmashPaint butterfly.

Hulk looked at his paint-covered hands and grinned, then made a bright pretty on his face. Like the nice Jungle People once did. “Water is life,” he said, like they did, then giggled. Giggles shook the floor. Teeny Monsters giggled too. Nat Monster smiled and left the three boys to their fun.

<^>

Tony came into the gym to giggles and a veritable mural of modart and abstracts joining quite lovely pictures together, and two boys and a Hulk covered in paint. He breathed deep and remembered what Fitz said about the paint coming off easily when one of the twins (he had no idea which, they were wearing paint covered work shirts rather than their usual green and blue) came running up to him, bare feet covered in paint, leaving little footprints on the floor.

“TONY TONY TONY! COME LOOK!” hollered the tiny fae-creature, grabbing his hand and pulling him to a part of the long strip of butcher paper. “Hulk painted it!”

“It” was a surprisingly good picture of the Avengers in a field of periwinkle flowers, with evergreen trees all around. Both Hulk and Bruce were accounted for. Elsewhere, he could see the same, big, green hand had painted a field of rose pink flowers next to a stream, and a lovely sunset over what looked like Mt. Everest.

“It’s beautiful, Hulk,” he said, words catching. Beautiful wasn’t the right word, it wasn’t… big enough. The painting was of something Tony had felt but couldn’t name. Something warm and open and giving-not-taking and it didn’t quite fit any pre-built definition of family, but that’s what he suspected it was. He noticed a shape he didn’t recognize, a blue-grey swipe in a vaguely person-shaped blob larger than the green figure. “Who’s that?”

“Big Jarvis,” Hulk said, rumbling Tony’s chest with the words. “Important to Family, had to be there. Not big enough paper, said OK to be smaller.”

“Hulk appears to believe that as I can access most of the world through the internet, I am approximately planet-sized,” Jarvis informed him, a thin thread of humor under it. “I have agreed to be represented as only slightly larger than him, in deference to perspective and the lack of planet-sized paper available.”

“Very generous of you, Jarvis,” Tony said with the same humor. “Now, I’ve made a pool table for us, why don’t we let this dry so Thor and Steve can put it up on a wall, while you two teach Hulk and me to play paint pool?”

If the bouncing the three boys were doing was anything to go by, the answer was a resounding yes.

“Well then, Jarvis, tell the Tall Ones they have a job to do, would you?”

“Of course, Sir.” 

Tony could almost see the lip-twitching not-grin the First Jarvis had had when trying not to laugh at his antics, the tone of voice the very same as the one the other Jarvis had had in such times….and not a detail he could remember having programmed into this Jarvis. He certainly hadn’t heard quite that tone in all of this Jarvis’ existence. He Did Not Cry.

He paused and looked down at the tiny bare feet covered in paint. “We should wash your feet and hands first, though, so we don’t track paint through the whole place. Jarvis, did we put some of that special soap Simmons mixed up in the gym bathroom?”

“No, Sir, Simmons is on her way down with it now.”

A few short minutes later, they were clean enough to walk around and headed up to the Common Room, where Tony had set up the table in a corner away from the couches and art.

The first few games, the twins resoundingly won, but Tony caught on quickly, and they never made Hulk feel bad for his Smashy Hands making it hard for him. All four of them were having quite a bit of fun when the other adults came in. Just in time to overhear Tony talking math at preschoolers. Who seemed to be understanding him. Possibly because Jarvis translated some of it.

“Should I be concerned about what those two will do with physics?” Darcy asked Clint and Nat, who knew them better. “Because I very much am. They break physics plenty as it is.”

“No,” Nat mused, “It will probably help them avoid some of the accidental messes. ‘Less boom is needed when you know where to put the boom to take a building down neatly,’ as Ciara says. She’ll probably approve.”

<^>

Dinner was... Interesting. Mostly because Hulk didn’t want to “go home” yet, and he and the twins played with their pot pie more than ate, sinking bits of crust into the filling to build ruin replicas. Caddell made Stonehenge. Colin insisted his was the Colosseum. Hulk’s was very clearly Angkor Wat. 

Finally, Clint started eating a cookie in front of them, pointedly staring at their plates, causing all three boys to deliberately smash their edifices, and take big, exaggerated bites of pie. Hulk’s bite was the whole pie. Hulk grinned at Teeny Monsters’ pouts. Being envied for something he could do was new and … good feeling. He grinned, his mouth still full of meat pie.

The twins gave Tasha pleading looks as they finished the required amounts of their plates. She sighed and nodded, smiling softly as they grabbed Hulk by the fingers and dragged him off.

“Better get dessert to the common room, Clint. They’ll want a movie before bed.”

“Wearing their hoodies, I assume?” Clint smirked.

“Of course, they have to show their new friend. I’ll meet you there, I need to get mine.”

The rest of the Avengers arrived at the common room carrying trays of baked goods and milk, having been pressed into service by Clint, to find the twins in their monster hoodies, hoods up. Natasha was in her neon pink and lavender monster hoodie, and Hulk had make-shift horns taped to his head. The opening theme of Monsters Inc was just beginning to play. Before long, the whole assembly was piled into the fort and chortling at the antics of Boo, Mike, and Sully. When the credits rolled, Hulk dropped off to sleep, fading back into Bruce, and the twins were yawning, rubbing their eyes and insisting that they Weren’t Tired .

Bucky smiled. “If you get into your pajamas and get into bed, I’ll read you a story, alright?”

Both boys bolted for their bags to get their pajamas, while Nat tucked Bruce in with blankets and pillows from the Fort. 

“He’s been through a lot,” Nat said softly. “You should have seen how he was in Kolkata. He’s been living in that place where you’re too tired to die, and too scared to live, so you just exist instead.”

“And?” Darcy asked. “That’s what we’re for. Family makes you live an interesting life, whether you want to or not.”

Nat turned to say something when her eyes went wide, and her face went pale. “Oh no. Papa,  _ you _ can’t read Mr Brown Can Moo! Only Unca Phil reads Mr. Brown. He does the voices.”

“What about this one?” Bucky asked, holding up a different book. Natasha nodded, so he got the boys tucked in beside him and opened it to read. “In the great green room, there was a telephone, and a red balloon, and a picture of the cow jumping over the moon.”

As he read, he kept careful eye on the boys’ energy levels, they were sleepy and tired, but not yet ready to sleep, so as he approached the last pages and knew they wouldn’t be asleep by then, he thought quickly and made up some new rhymes.

“Goodnight smiles full of charm,

Goodnight metal robot arm.

Goodnight capes, Goodnight cowls,

Goodnight my little night owls,

Goodnight pickets, goodnight tents,

Goodnight giant world events,

Goodnight range with lots of targets,

Goodnight Friendlies, Goodnight Jarvis,

Goodnight Stark, Goodnight Foster,

Goodnight all Little Monsters.”

The twins giggled sleepily, and, like Boo, were quite suddenly fast asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Claymore: a two-handed long sword found solely among the clansmen of the Scottish Highlands.  
> Zweihander: a two-handed long sword used by the German Landsknechte.  
> Siedkonurs and siedmadrs: mages... or in Midgard, Physicists  
> Gunball: The game Jane and Hulk played in the helicarrier attack, rolling a crumpled gun around.  
> Paintberry: a paintball  
> Modart: modern art, characterized by bright color and bold shapes.
> 
> Notes:  
> A walking axe has a long handle to be used as a staff or cane on hikes, and may also have a pointed end to dig in and grip into the ground. They also tend to have smaller heads like a fireman’s axe so as to be lighter when carrying it long distances. A war axe has a heavier head or a doubled head and the handle is only the length of a broad sword. Colin uses both. The walking axe he has figured out how to use the pointed end as a spear while using the axe. He likes tanking multiple opponents. With the waraxe, he turns into a whirling dervish of doom.
> 
> In this chapter we see Bruce doing some tangible work on his issues with Hulk. He's scared that Hulk will react violently to the kids, since his only past understanding of Hulk was as a fighter who specializes in Smash. While he's starting to come around to that being a good thing if aimed well, he's not yet really grokked that Hulk is a lovable Dork, but the kids insistence on meeting Hulk gave him a chance to see that and Hulk a chance to play, which he needs at his developmental stage. 
> 
> Hulk spent some time with Water Protectors while on the run,.
> 
> TeaserT:
> 
> “Come on, guys, Justice never sleeps.”  
> “Justice never babysat the Harrow twins,”


	27. The Eye of the Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the Twins are gone, missions resume.

Breakfast was a quiet affair, punctuated mostly by the coffee maker being run for the fourth, fifth, and sixth times. No one wanted to be less than over-charged for their last few hours with the boys, certain they’d need it. However, the boys themselves seemed content with quieter play until it was time to pack them up and take them to the rendezvous for their Mam to get them. Well, quieter play and watching the scientists get back to the work they’d put on pause the day before.

Colin peered over Bruce’s elbow, “Whatcha doing?”

Bruce answered absentmindedly, eyes still in his microscope, “I’m calculating the speed of increase in mitosis when chloroplasts absorb cosmic radiation.”

“Why?” Caddell inquired.

Bruce stopped himself from saying “I want to get there before Richards, because he’s a bully.” That would just be immature, even if it was accurate.

“To find out the ecological half-life of GRBs.”

Colin this time: “What’s that?”

“A dying star’s farts.” 

“What’s it do?”

“Well, in general it pushes energy out over the galaxy and helps make the aurora borealis look nice, but I want to know what it does when it gets down into the plants and animals, and how long it would stay there. Is it like discarded styrofoam, there forever, or is it more like Chinese food, and we need more samples in an hour? So far, I think it’s actually more like… Well, it makes the cells divide faster.”

The boys grinned, “COOL. Can we watch?”

Bruce looked up at them and thought back on his idle answers then shrugged, “Sure, why not”.

<^>

The boys had been gone for an hour when Jarvis notified them of a Hydra base located by the tracker Natasha had slipped onto an operative who thought he’d gotten away. Steve rose stiffly and stretched, “Come on, guys, Justice never sleeps.”

“Justice never babysat the Harrow twins,” Bucky retorted.

Natasha sashayed through, polished as ever, “Don’t be a baby, Papa.”

After they departed on their clean up mission, Tony was left with scientists too tired to talk, and a faint humming sound he couldn’t find. Tony looked suspiciously at the ceiling. “Jarvis?”

“Yes, Sir?” Jarvis said, and the sound stopped while he was speaking.

“Are you…? You are. You’re humming. ”

“My apologies, Sir, I shall desist.”

“No, don’t. Just, WHY are you humming?”

“I was preoccupied, Sir.”

“With what?”

“I believe Miss Lewis calls it ‘scrapbooking’.” The display to Tony’s left lit up with a slideshow of snapshots of Tony’s family and the Twins. Tony watched for a minute, realizing they had all smiled more in the 28 hours the boys had visited them than any of them had in months. And Jarvis had captured each and every poignant and gleeful moment. He smiled and resolutely did NOT tear up. 

“Carry on then.” 

“Thank you, Sir.”

<^>

Darcy knew she’d been doing well with the team, but her interactions with HERO continued as well. Mostly her job was resource delegation and approval of actions. The system was incredibly streamlined, and had been since Byzantine joined. Which was why Phil had that callsign in the first place, a joke about the Lost Bureaucrat of Byzantium, an ancient political power run by bureaucracy. His new system had allowed her to save hundreds of man-hours a day, minimize unnecessary forms, and increase efficient deployment of operatives.

It also meant that when things she had flagged as Priority 3 or higher happened, she got the incident report immediately. Which is why when a Rising Tide hactivist following SHIELD activity caught Dr. Betty Ross on a nightclub security camera, she could send the order to follow the woman by camera. She was good at hiding, only a surprise interception by a guy who looked like he benched in Steve’s weight-class during an altercation with Crossbones had her face the hidden camera enough for an ID. But once her team of hackers, who ironically called themselves The Hacks, got the body profile and gait sample from the parking lot, followed the car to the hospital, followed her to a taxi, and saw her come out of her apartment the next day, no amount of wigs, sunglasses, or makeup could hide her.

“Bruce?” she called.

“Lunch isn’t going to be ready for another three hours, Darcy, you knew that when you voted for pot-roast last night,” the gamma-expert called back from the kitchen.

“Yeah, can you put that on a simmer for tonight? We have a looong overdue lunch date.”

“With who?” he asked cautiously. “I’ll need to make something light for later if the Other Guy has to make an appearance. I’m never up to sturdy stuff then.”

“I sort of doubt you’ll be letting Hulk out when we go to see Betty,” Darcy said casually as Tony walked into the main room. Bruce dropped something metal in the kitchen and scrambled into her office doorway. Actually, it was just a wide alcove in the main room’s wall formed by buttressing. With the cork-boards, whiteboards and magnetic panels she had added to hold extra notes she didn’t trust to cyber storage, however, it looked like a small office. She even had the desk and chair stolen from Tony’s room.

“Betty as in Betty Ross?” Tony asked before Bruce could. “Brucie-bear’s long lost love, Betty?”

“No,” Darcy drawled. “Betty Grable, famous chorus dancer, actress and pin-up model of World War Two. Of course I mean Doctor Betty Ross! I’ve been trying to get her into HERO since I founded the damn thing, in 1991. And in 2011, man my life is odd, I founded the same thing in two separate years, two decades apart.”

“You know where Betty is?” Bruce asked over her musings.

“I do indeed. Sound the Assemble, Jarvis, I want us covered on all sides with this. Doctor Ross is not to be injured, threatened or have her ass of a father or anyone reporting to him come within five hundred yards, actually make that two miles, in case he has snipers. Tell the techs I need them too, I want to know how the drones are coming.”

A sharp but unalarming ping sounded throughout the halls, echoing as Darcy assembled her report. The base’s occupants filed in quickly and efficiently, if a bit unorganized and sloppy. That could be her biography, Darcy thought, _Quick, Efficient, and a Total Mess; a Darcy Lewis Story._ When everyone was there, she walked out in front of her desk.

“We have a new mission, for anyone interested in it. C and E, contact and extraction, the ‘E’ contingent on the outcome of the ‘C’, as always.” She nodded at Natasha, who had gone on a few missions with Red Room where the ‘E’ wasn’t optional. She didn’t organize her people that way. “Ideally, we recruit, if not, we verify safety and add measures as is necessary and requested.”

“Mission identity?” Bucky asked. Bruce blushed hot pink. “Oh. Doctor Ross. Cool. I’m in.”

“Like I’m letting you two loons out without me,” Steve said sarcastically. “Come on, Buck, I had Nat help me pick out good undercover outfits for us, I’ll show you.” The two moved off, Clint and Nat nodded and left as well.

“I’m certainly going to help my Science Bro go get his girl,” Tony said.

“Key word, Tony,” Darcy warned. “Undercover.”

“Lewis, I know how to forge iron with an anvil and a hammer. Several hammers, a few tongs, you know, it’s much more finicky than people think, but my point is, I didn’t learn that as Tony Stark. I spent two years of college doing on-line classes and getting a mastery in blacksmithing under a false identity. I know how to be undercover.”

“Coolio, then. Keep a gauntlet handy in case.”

“What you did there,” he said, eyes narrow, “I saw it. Bad, bad pun. Good for you.”

“Obviously Bruce is going,” Jemma said, “but I don’t see how we fit in,” she finished, gesturing to the three relative newcomers.

“Gemstone, you are my biggest secret weapon,” Darcy said with a wicked smile, “and I have assassins.”

“Gem… stone?”

“Do you not like it? It’s just, we shouldn’t use Fleming in the field, I need to have you and Fitz mobile and spreadable in patterns. Your name starts with j-e-m, and that’s close to gem, and you really are tough and sharp like a diamond, or a lab beryl of some kind. We can alter…” She cut off as Jemma tackle hugged her.

“Do I want to know what ye named us?” Fitz asked her hesitantly in his light brogue.

“Skye already agreed to Quake. Only her brother would know why. With Gemstone and the D.W.A.R.F.s I was tempted to make you Snow White, but I thought you’d probably kill me in ways undetectable to modern science. So I fiddled with the idea, and… how do you like Snowstorm? You will be running interference....”

Fitz smiled at the pun. “Where do ye want us Swapper?”

Darcy grinned back at her friends. “Quake has the diner a block from the apartment one way and a block from the meeting spot in the other, I want you monitoring not just feeds to help blip the video when Betty gets near, but also the street. If she makes a break, I want to know where.”

“Got it,” Skye said. “They have wi-fi, yes?”

“What am I, an animal? Do they have wi-fi…,” Darcy rolled her eyes and Skye gave her a thumbs up

“Gemstone, you and Snowstorm will take rooftop positions on these buildings,” she said pointing to a map on her Starkpad before flicking the hologram map out to each of them. “I want full, rotating D.W.A.R.F. surveillance in a 5.5 meter radius around Doctor Ross. Anything, and I mean anything, looks hinky, you call it in. You’ve got the stealth mode built in, right?”

“That we do,” Jemma said. “We’ll drive with Quake. I can’t wait to talk to the Doctor Elizabeth Ross! She revolutionized bio-chemical organic radiation studies.”

That just left Thor and the behind team.

“What would you have me do, Lightning Sister?” he said, bowing graciously to her leadership.

“You are not great at undercover, sad to say. No amount of Clark Kent-ing you will hide who you are. But I could use someone in reserve to do something big and flashy if we need cover for the exfiltration, and I just so happen to have a brother who is very good at big and flashy. Are you willing to be our cover if we need it?”

“Of course. I have heard of the great trials Siedkonur Ross has suffered from her sire. I’ll admit, I seem to find a certain kinship of his misdeeds and those of my family when Loki showed signs of siedr. If I can protect her now, perhaps my heart will bear less of the weight of my own guilt for our brother’s mistreatment.” Thor chuckled. “He always accused me of being as large and obnoxious as a Bilgesnipe, I can finally put that to use.”

“Good,” she nodded. “Behind team, you know your roles, let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Callsign- another word for code name.  
> Crossbones- Rumlow's code name within HERO  
> Hacks- slang for people who are bad at a job.  
> Loons- 30's and 40's slang for crazy people.  
> Fleming- short for Fleming77, FitzSimmons combined online identity.  
> Lab beryl- a precious stone in the beryl family (ruby, sapphire, emerald) used to cut tough material or focus laser beams. Not as flashy as their jewelry cousins, but very durable and useful.  
> Snowstorm- a nickname for the static interference on old TVs, more used in the UK than in America.  
> Exfiltration- removing someone surreptitiously, the opposite side of infiltration.  
> Bilgesnipe- referenced in The Avengers as being large, aggressive and repulsive.
> 
> Code Names: (these are different since it's not a publicly known Avengers mission.)  
> Swapper- Darcy  
> Scrapper- Steve  
> Snapper- Bucky  
> Quake- Skye  
> Gemstone- Jemma  
> Snowstorm- Fitz  
> Hourglass- Natasha  
> Churchill- Clint  
> Winterfell- Tony  
> Bombshell- Betty
> 
> Notes:  
> Good paperwork saves time, money, and in this case lives.
> 
> Body profiles and gait samples (the way someone walks) are alternate ways of identifying people. Makeup and wigs can fool facial recognition programs, but you have to be really dedicated to change a body profile and gait to escape detection. The legality of these programs is questionable, but this is done by hackers, not cops in this case.
> 
> Yes, I reference Big Jim's Big Day(s) here.
> 
> Tony shows far more blacksmithing competence than ordinary in Iron Man. He probably has a mastery if he's producing hand-forged stuff that good, and there's no canon mention of him learning that. Thus the undercover gag.
> 
> Quake is Skye (Daisy Johnson's) superhero name in both the comics and the Agents of SHIELD TV show, but in this case was not chosen for her earthquake powers, but for how Matt Murdock described her angry heartbeat once as children in St. Agnes Orphanage.
> 
> The D.W.A.R.F.s are a set of drones designed to remotely collect forensic evidence designed by Fitz and Simmons. They have names corresponding to their tasks, and Simmons at one point said one is basically just sniffing things.
> 
> 5.5 meters would be enough of a radius to cover an entire street width in most small American towns. For standard users, it's about 18 feet.


	28. Contact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Team meets Dr. Betty Ross

Steve had thought Natasha was crazy when she put him in a bright blue hoodie with an over jacket of drab olive brown and a black baseball cap and glasses as a disguise, until he saw Bucky. His lover had tied his hair back and tucked it in his own charcoal gray cap and shrugged on the same color denim jacket. Steve knew what Nat had been going for. People notice Captain America and the Winter Soldier. Those were icons. Stevie Rogers and his friend Buck from Brooklyn… nobody cared. Those were people. He could see it in how Bucky stood, nowhere near military precision, the loose, relaxed jerk from the 30’s done up in the clothes of now. His own baggy layers de-emphasized his muscle, and the glasses hinted at physical impairment. She couldn’t make him smaller, but she could make him a little more like he had been. He hooked his hand in Bucky’s and let him take them on the bike. 

Darcy relayed directions, and Bucky followed them, mostly. He did loop a few blocks, and circled wide to enter the other parking lot for the park, away from the playground they were going to be meeting Betty at. They walked around, holding hands and looking for all the world like two dopes in love. Darcy had said once; the best disguise isn’t. Now he knew she was right. He pulled out the earbud cord from his iPod that was hooked into their coms, and gave Bucky one, like he’d seen couples do at the mall and during the tie shopping trip.

“Alright, Scrapper, Snapper, you in position yet?” Darcy said on the line. Steve adjusted the bud, short, long. Morse code for A, for Affirmative. “Good, Quake, I’m sending the text now, she’s the third floor up, front middle window, nearest fire exit should be in your line of sight.”

“She’s coming out of the building,” Skye reported calmly. “Alright, looking left, looking right, damn. Gemstone, Snowstorm, be advised she is heading south, I repeat, south.”

“Copy that, Quake, we’ve got her,” Jemma soothed

“Hourglass just intercepted a Squid,” Clint said. “Please advise.”

“Try not to die Churchill,” Darcy told him. “I need eyes people.”

“I’ve got her,” Tony said. “She’s not running, she’s checking for tails. Peeling off now.”

“Copy that, Winterfell,” Fitz said on the coms. “Cross the street, Sneezy has increased aggression hormones a bit ahead of her.”

“On it. Hey there, nasty.” The sound of the miniature repulsor firing rang through the coms.

“Swapper, be advised, Bombshell is entering the park.”

“Roger dodger,” Darcy said. “Commence Operation Hallmark Moment.”

<^>

Bucky felt for Doctor Ross. She’d been through a lot, and that she was even trying to get to a meeting with Bruce arranged by a burner phone to an unlisted number said she’d survived it intact. Paranoid but intact, and in this case, that paranoia was prudent. He gently led Steve across a bridge over a rain-gully filled with blue rocks to mimic a stream. Most of the park was like that, acting like a standard park with changes to fit the climate.

The couple spent some time admiring a fenced off cacti grove, ears solidly on the other side of it, where Darcy and Bruce were sitting in the playground. Bruce had taken a seat on a bench and Darcy had disappeared under the play equipment so thoroughly, that even though she’d told them all where she would be, he couldn’t spot her.

“Bruce?” said the woman in the blonde wig. It was a good wig, but you did not train with Red Room and not spot a wig.

“Betty, hey, you changed your hair.”

“We’re on the run from my madman paternal bio-donor, you outed yourself on TV, and you want to talk about my hair? Who’s holding you? Who sent that text? What leverage are they using?”

“Swapper, be advised, Mission Objective is going Minsk,” Bucky said into Steve’s shirt collar.

“Understood. All cards get ready to be laid on the table.” A small shadow moved under the net bridge. “Swapper, entering field.” Darcy, in a baggy knit sweater that did not belong in mid-afternoon Nevada and cargo pants, unfolded and slid up to Betty.

“Betty,” Bruce said calmly, “Meet Darcy. The answers would be nobody, her, and freedom. Darcy helps me, she helps Him. That was a short list, but it’s getting longer because of her.”

“I don’t know what malarkey you got him to believe, but I’m not falling for it,” Betty said, drawing a taser.

“Oh, Honey, we have got to upgrade you.” Darcy lifted a wrist and spoke into the com. “Hourglass, who did your Bites? I’m looking at the saddest taser right now, we need to go shopping.”

“Someone in R and D, I don’t know who, they were prototypes when I stole them.” A wet thud. “Where are we dumping bodies?”

“What is this, amateur hour? I raised you better than that, clean up your own messes Hourglass, or no desert.”

“Don’t worry, Swaps, I’ll pimp her taser in no time,” Tony said on the line. “But we should move, plain-clothes army units just came as back-ups. Why do they not even bother to walk like civilians?”

“They signed with Ross, Winterfell, do they need another reason to be stupid? Say thanks to the Greatly Bumbling One, God of Imperial Stormtroopers, and haul ass,” Darcy demanded. “Initiate Hammertime.” 

A crack of lightning hit the sky and Bucky moved to cover the rear of the diamond formation, Steve at the front, Darcy and Bruce, soon joined by Tony, on the other side. Clint and Natasha fell in and they were fully circled around Doctor Ross by the time Skye pulled her van up and they piled in the back.

“Where are the others?” he asked his sister.

“With Byz, lucky little sneaks. He hot-wired a bus. So not fair, and hands off the Fruity Pebbles! God, it’s like Matty, only you like my food.”

“Sorry sis,” he said, not sorry at all.

<^>

Betty Ross looked one by one at the people who had sprung up from nowhere to haul her off to a tatty van.

Bruce, of course, his shy sunshine smile peeking out at her like he was afraid she’d hold it against him. She trusted him, even when he didn’t trust himself. The fact that he seemed to trust these people was why she hadn’t run immediately. She noted the casual and friendly way the redheaded woman brushed a hand across Bruce’s back, checking his tension and posture, and the way Bruce allowed it.

Darcy, the young woman who Bruce said helped him, who gave orders as easily as the General, but dripping with the good humor and affection the General doled out as hard-won prizes. It hurt, a bit, seeing how a leader COULD be, how her father had never been, not with her. It also hurt to watch her fuss over the redhead, casual touches to check for injury and reassure them both.

The man with the redhead was sharp, he noticed her watching them, but he just gave her a grin and said nothing.

“So, who are you people again?” Betty asked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Morse code- the dot and dash code used by telegraph offices, and later in the war.  
> Bites- short for Widow's Bites, the electric stun weapons used by Natasha.
> 
> Code Names: (these are different since it's not a publicly known Avengers mission.)  
> Swapper- Darcy  
> Scrapper- Steve  
> Snapper- Bucky  
> Quake- Skye  
> Gemstone- Jemma  
> Snowstorm- Fitz  
> Hourglass- Natasha  
> Churchill- Clint  
> Winterfell- Tony  
> Bombshell- Betty
> 
> Notes:  
> Natasha, Steve and Bucky are wearing their under-cover outfits from Captain America: Winter Soldier. Normalizing is a great way to disguise, which is how celebrities can go anywhere nearly undetected with cheap shades and a ball-cap.
> 
> Desert climates can't grow standard park plants without very wasteful watering, so parks in those areas sometimes use creative hardscaping with colored rocks or other optical tricks to mimic a typical park.
> 
> Bucky saying the objective is going Minsk is reference to a mission they did together that went sideways. Much like the very contested "Budapest" lines in The Avengers, it's an in-joke, I figure Nat got that tendency somewhere and the Red Room wasn't the most humorous.
> 
> The Imperial Stormtroopers are well known in the Star Wars fandom for not being at all good at their jobs.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “THEY HAVE ROCKETS? NOBODY SAID ANYTHING ABOUT ROCKETS!”


	29. Exfiltrate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Avengers get Betty to safety and the Trio need to have a discussion about trust and the past.

“I’m Darcy Lewis, also called The Lieu, and by certain nonagenarian assholes of my acquaintance, Lieutenant Liberty,” Darcy said. She wanted to make sure she properly introduced everyone, Betty deserved that much, having been basically kidnapped. “Next to me are Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, aka Captain America and Winter Soldier. The scruffy nerf herder on your right is a cleverly disguised Tony Stark, he who does not do with the secret identity gag. Nat’s the red-head with blood on her forehead, oh that is going to drive me insane, lean over.”

Natasha leaned across the van while Darcy used a wet nap on her bloodied head. None of it was hers, thankfully.

“I’m Clint,” the archer picked up seamlessly. “Nat and I were spies and assassins for SHIELD until Lieu brought us into the Avengers. She’s Nat’s mom, basically, and where Nat goes, I go. Skye’s our driver and Bucky’s sister, and you already know Bruce. When Darcy’s people caught a video of you, she put us on the SCE for you, since Bruce isn’t really that great without you. He’s good people, don’t get me wrong, but he mopes.”

“SCE?” Betty asked.

“Surveil, Contact, and Exfiltrate,” Darcy said, content with Nat’s level of cleanliness. “We watched to be sure contacting you was safe, for both you and Bruce. Then we contacted you to see how you felt about being relocated somewhere safer, and the plan was to wait until you said yes, but… Tony? Why exactly were we forced to move to plan B?”

“Soldiers, maybe fifty or so. They came in on a tour bus and were dressed the part, but I sold weapons, I’ve known soldiers of all types, and all soldiers walk a certain way unless they try not to, and they weren’t ours, so I assumed they were Ross’s. The other Ross, not Doctor Ross. The Ross Steve promised to punch out on camera.”

“You promised to hit my father on camera?” Betty asked Steve. Darcy quickly leaned protectively across his body. “Oh don’t be silly, I hate that man, I was going to say I could kiss him for that.”

Darcy let the tension out, then processed the words. “No, mine. I got here first. Well, Bucky did, but we’re a triad, so it doesn’t count. Keep your own serum boy toy, these are mine.”

“Angel, you’re acting a little Jane right now,” Steve told her. “Are you alright?”

“She’s really freaking pretty and I’m a hot mess,” Darcy mumbled.

“Doll, I have had a pants busting crush on you since I was 17,” Bucky rumbled as he pulled her into his lap. “You have to work a lot harder than waving a pretty face at me, or Steve for that matter, to get us to ditch our best girl. Steve lived with an internationally acclaimed chorus line, and I did missions with Russian supermodels. We love you. Who you are, in here,” he touched her chest before tapping her head, “and in here.”

Darcy nodded into his chest as Steve rubbed soothing circles on her back.

“Wow, you are a hot mess,” Betty said. “I’m officially accepting all the other crazy on faith. If somebody with skills like you gets freaked out over losing her man, then formerly dead WWII heroes, spies, assassins, super hero moguls and a woman who keeps Fruity Pebbles in stock in her van slash apartment are not the strangest things I’ve seen today.”

“Fruity Pebbles are not that strange,” Skye said defensively.

“No, but you knew exactly what he was reaching for before he even got to it. The van looks like a mess, but I bet you could lay hands on everything back here before someone finished listing it. That sort of method in the madness is something I only see on my super-genius doctoral students.”

“Fair. I’m a high-school dropout, but I do have a GED. My brother would have been disappointed. Not Bucky, my other brother.”

“Lemme guess, Daryl?” Betty said dryly and Tony burst out into wheezing laughter.

“No, Matty,” Skye said patiently. “My brother from the orphanage.”

“Sibs from different cribs are a family specialty,” Darcy explained as Skye swerved wildly and the van rocked with a boom.

“THEY HAVE ROCKETS? NOBODY SAID ANYTHING ABOUT ROCKETS!” Skye screeched. Darcy snapped into combat mode.

“Bruce, stay here and cover Betty, Hulk, get her and Skye out if it comes to it. Nat, you help Clint get to the roof and the two of you focus high, Steve, you and Tony do a tuck and roll and clear out the ground. Skye, I need an Ivan, crazier the better.” 

Bruce immediately covered Betty with his body as Nat and Clint opened the door and flipped onto the roof of the van. As Skye pulled into a sharp U-turn that became doughnuts on the highway, Steve and Tony went diving free in seemingly random directions. “Ready to do something really dumb?” she asked Bucky.

“Vsegda,” he said with a grin.

“Okay then, feel like a game of Play-Dangle?”

“Not sure Ross will fall for it.”

“He thinks Hulk is a monster, the man believes what he sees. Betty toss me your wig.”

<^>

Steve hit the ground rolling and came up firing. He might not like guns as much as his shield, but he could use them. He and Tony took the first wave out fast with the modified Night Night guns they were both carrying. The ones who kept coming found out what happened when you trained a man who forged iron by hand in Hitting 101. He didn’t need the suit to send them flying into each other. A few men fell from hovering jets, one jet hit the ground in flame. He and Tony wordlessly agreed to fish out survivors.

“What in the hell?” Tony asked. Steve was about to remind him about the language thing when the tech genius pointed. Steve turned to see the van had stopped doing spirals on the pavement and was facing the attacking forces. Also, Darcy was doing a behind the head pull-up on a steady arm, Doctor Ross’s blond wig dislodged and covering most of her face. With the bulky sweater stripped off and replaced with Doctor Ross’s leather jacket, she looked a little like Betty. And from the angle of the incoming soldiers, it would look like she was being held out of the van by her neck. She was squirming enough to look painful, but he could see her tendons flexing as she held herself stable. The charcoal coat disguised whose arm it was, so Steve drew a logical conclusion. A crazy one, but it was still logical.

“Darcy has a plan,” he told Tony. “A plan that’s not fully baked, and I intend to have words over it with her, but not now. Now, we help her. Can Mister Roboto hook my com into the lead chopper?”

“Of course,” Tony said and Steve heard the crackle-hiss of an open line. “Your voice is modulated. Speak when ready.”

“Ross, I would advise you to call off your men. I don’t think you want tomorrow’s headlines reading General in Army Shoots Own Daughter, or even Renowned Scientist Dead In Tragic Military Action.”

“Who the hell is this and where do you get off threatening me?”

“Wow, you are a monster,” Steve said in shock. He'd heard the stories, but he knew Bruce was a biased source. A biased,  _ totally accurate _ source. “You might be about to kill your own child and you think _ I’m _ threatening  _ you? _ I’ll tell you who I am, I’m the line in the sand. I’m the tree by the river of Truth saying ‘No, you move’. I’m the guy who doesn’t like bullies, no matter where they're from. Give up before this gets embarrassing.”

“You won’t get away with this,” the General grumbled as Clint and Nat climbed in past the struggling ‘Betty’ and Tony dropped the last survivor five feet from the flaming wreck.

“I think I just did. I look forward to seeing you in person, Ross,” Steve said as he heard the click of the connection breaking. “That’s one publicized punch I’m going to enjoy.”

He hopped in beside Darcy, who was fixing her hair from the wig mess.

“Home?” she asked.

“Home,” he agreed. “We’re gonna talk about you doing pull-ups in the line of fire with obscured vision, you know.”

“Yeah, but we will do it over pot-roast.”

“You three will do it  _ after _ pot-roast,” Bruce chided. “Clint and I worked hard on that and we will not be having emotionally charged work discussions over dinner.”

“It’s your own rule, Darcy,” Clint chimed in. Darcy stuck her tongue out at him.

Steve smiled at his family. They did the dangerous, crazy, outside chance work, and then they turned to each other for a feeling of safety, even in teasing. It was like pressing a safety rail to see if it would hold. And the Avengers always held.

<^>

Bucky worked to keep the manic grin inside him from reaching his face when Doctor Ross let out a tiny shriek as the van came to a stop and Darcy let him thrust her out of the door with one arm. It was funny, but only to someone who knew Darcy could have taken him apart in seconds if she really wanted to, dangling out the door or not. In fact, it was her arms, not his, that held her weight. His hand was only there for supporting her head and giving her a good grip spot. 

They’d practiced this move with Natalia when she was a child, pretending to dangle her in the air. Red Room training practices made it harder than it should be, holding her over the edge of tall buildings, over drops into flame or icy water, when she had just woken and when she was falling asleep on her feet. They had all three known those parts were wrong, but that didn’t stop Play-Dangling from becoming a favorite game. 

A game that became all too real in Dubai, on top of a skyscraper, as part of the extraction of Black Widow from her place beside an American oil baron. Talia had been wearing a glide suit when she let go of his arm, and suffered only minor bruising, but they hadn’t done it for fun after. He’d never done it with Darcy at the end of his arm. He kind of liked it. She trusted him to keep his arm steady, even as she pretended to struggle. In turn, he trusted her to hold herself safely. He liked the shared trust the fake out required. 

He listened to Steve’s modulated, computerized voice on the coms dressing down a General, and it wasn’t lost that the only time Steve used the title was when talking about headlines. Steve could be very respectful, he respected almost everyone in the sense of acting like they were decent and valuable human beings, and his exceptions had already proven they weren’t. He could also respect people in authority, he and Philips had butted heads a lot, but unless Philips broke the cardinal rule of being Steve’s boss, Steve could toe the line.

Ross had broken that cardinal rule. He treated others without the respect due a decent and valuable human being without provocation. Bucky knew in Steve’s book, that made him a failure as an authority. At least Philips had always tried to repair what he’d sent wrong, and sometimes, he broke the Rule because he knew Steve wanted to do something he couldn’t give an okay for, like saving the core Howlies and the other men. It was sneaky, but it appealed to both Bucky and Steve’s sense of rule-bending mischief.

He also knew Steve was serious about talking with them about the Play-Dangle, and he could see why in how close Steve held Darcy on the ride home. She barely moved from his lap until they were pulling into the bunker’s garage beside a large, gaudy bus.

“The hell is that?” he asked as Phil stepped forward to help them get out and subtly check for injuries.

“I believe when you take something discarded and ill-suited for its task and make it into something better, it’s called up-cycling,” Phil said calmly.

“Jarvis, you did check it, right?” Tony asked as he pulled off his hat and ran his gauntlet free hand through his hair. “I don’t trust anything save Doctor Ross that came from that absolute hackweasel of a General.”

“Of course I did Sir,” Jarvis said, slightly offended. “Aside from three phones I began blocking when Agents Coulson, Simmons, and Fitz boarded, there are no trackers, and now all three phones are in Faraday lock-up in the fifth sub-basement lab, pending review.”

“Fantastic,” Bruce said, brushing by them with Betty holding his hand. “Betty, that’s Jarvis, he’s a nice AI who helps us out. And this is Phil, he keeps the squishies from being too badly hurt for Simmons to fix. She’s a bio-chemist, but she’s also pretty good at medic work. I’m sure you’ll meet her at dinner, I’m starving.”

Steve and Bucky’s stomachs let out identical growls, followed by a softer gurgle from Talia.

“The metabolisms have spoken,” Darcy said. “Is my brother in yet?”

“No, Prince Thor is still in the field. He seems to have taken a dislike to someone so…” Jarvis hesitated an almost imperceptible moment, “incompetent, taking the name Thunderbolt.”

“Why do I feel like incompetent was  _ not _ the word used and I’m going to be playing Rubik’s Brain on him later?”

“Because you are remarkably perceptive, Miss Lewis,” Jarvis said, “Dinner is ready.” And that ended that for the moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Nonagenarian- in their nineties.  
> Acting a little Jane- Jane in my canon has Autism Spectrum Disorder, but nuero-typical people can have similar reactions to autistic ones in the right (or wrong) headspace. That's what this means here.  
> Crazy Ivan- Better known from Firefly, a sharp u-turn was called a 'crazy Ivan' because Russian submarine captains used it to avoid being broadside to enemy torpedoes.  
> Vsegda- always (Russian)  
> Night Night guns- a knockout gun.  
> Not fully baked- sort of insane.  
> Mister Roboto- Jarvis' code name in the field.  
> Talia- one of Bucky and Darcy's familiar names for Natasha.  
> Glide suit- a body suit with panels similar to the 'wingflaps' of a flying squirrel, used to slow falls. NOT as safe as a parachute, but less noticeable.  
> Hackweasel- incompetent and untrustworthy. Tony is experimenting with cussing without cussing for Steve.  
> Squishies- adopted gaming slang, the combatants more likely to suffer injury.
> 
> Notes:  
> The phrase 'scruffy nerf herder' comes from Star Wars, used to insultingly describe Han Solo.
> 
> People who fight for a living develop a certain muscle memory for how to move. Unless you actively avoid it, your walk will tell an informed observer what fighting style you favor, in this case that they are soldiers. A really good observer can also pinpoint origin of soldier and level of competence from watching but that's not Tony's specialty.
> 
> Darcy has some bad tape about herself, so sometimes she gets jealous about the boys. They think it's silly, because they love her and if they wanted a different woman had plenty of chances at it, but logic has nothing to do with it. She IS working on it, but slip-ups do happen.
> 
> Method in the madness is a form of organization that looks hyper-disorganized, but enables the user to access anything quickly. It's not useful until you start tipping into genius level IQ's. Skye is more of a super-genius which makes the mess-as-design much easier for her to use than compulsive order.
> 
> "My other brother Daryl." is a line from an old comedy show I have forgotten the name of. The gag was "This is my brother Daryl, and that's my other brother Daryl." I'm pegging Betty as an old TV show girl and Tony is the oldest human Avenger.
> 
> Please do not anger a blacksmith enough that they hit you. Even mild training turns those muscles into weapons. Blacksmiths take "suns out, guns out" a bit literally, their arms are scary.
> 
> The Play-Dangle as described here is a theatrical method. I've used it, it's not hard on a stage, but I would imagine the added factor of a moving car would be an unnecessary complication.
> 
> Steve gave the iconic 'no, you move' speech to Spiderman in the comics, here's a link: https://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/428954.html
> 
> Although the Play-Dangle is perfectly safe in a controlled environment with people who know what they're doing, that is not how the Red Room planned on it ever being used, so their training was very unsafe and morally wrong. It is possible to find joy in things even in the darkest times, though, which is why those cherished family things stuck with Bucky.
> 
> There are two meanings to "respecting someone" one is to treat them with basic human decency, the other is to treat them like an authority. Often abusers will use "If you won't respect me, I won't respect you" as a tool to trap their victims, but that use means "If you won't treat me like an authority, I won't treat you like a person." Which is bull. Steve uses "If a boss will not treat others like humans, I won't treat them as authorities." Which can cause friction, but is more moral. Philips understood that and used it to give tacit and deniable permission to Steve in the War because he was a good officer, Ross just doesn't get it at all, because he is the worst of all possible officers in the Marvel Canon I could find.
> 
> Up-cycling is commonly used on junk or damaged goods. In this case, Phil is being low-key funny/insulting about stealing Ross's bus.
> 
> Rubik's Cube is a puzzle considered difficult based around lining the colors up to get solid sides. Rubik's Brain is a way of conveying putting a person's psyche back together in a way that makes sense after they lose touch with their normal.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “Cry havoc,” Skye said with a serious face, “and let slip the Barnes of War.”


	30. Debrief, Decompress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The hard conversations are had.

Steve had kindly let her off the talking to after dinner when Thor came in mid meal and promptly sat beside Jane on the floor, laying his head on her knee. Darcy was grateful for that as she and Jane got him to at least talk a bit. Fighting on Doctor Ross’s behalf had brought up a lot of conflicted feelings in her brother, Darcy noticed. He and Loki had always, in her knowledge, had very different ideas about what had happened with them growing up. The basic facts were the same, but prior to his adoption of her, Thor had been pretty content in his Golden Child role, and never noticed Loki becoming Odin’s Scapegoat. It bothered him how much damage he had been encouraged to do to their brother, and how little he’d noticed until afterwards.

“Thor, here on Midgard, we like to say, hindsight is 20/20,” she said in a break of his self-recriminations. “It means you always see better looking backwards at the past than you ever will looking at the future or the now. You’re seeing with better clarity what Loki was trying to tell you before. That’s progress, it means you can use it to look at the now and decide what you really want. I don’t believe you want to hurt our Shadow Brother, do you?”

“Nay, I never did. I simply did not see that I was. How can you wound someone’s soul and not notice? What sort of vile creature does not see the damage he’s doing to his own brother?”

“Do you remember, after the Battle,” Jane added absently. “Tony was walking a little off, and Bruce noticed, and there was that huge fight?”

“The Man of Iron had been injured in the battle’s fray, and did not wish to worry us. He has fought long alone, and is unused to the care of shield-kin,” Thor said.

“No,” Jane shook her head. “He’d been hurt because he was falling too fast to be safely caught when Hulk grabbed him. Hulk had tried his best not to hurt him, because Tony was a friend, but it’s just not possible to fully protect someone falling at terminal velocity. That he wasn't killed or paralyzed is a testament to how good Hulk's catch and brake was. But he knew how Bruce thought about Hulk. We all did, it’s hard not to notice when someone hates someone else that  _ loudly. _ And he knew how Bruce would, and actually did, react to hearing Tony was hurt when Hulk grabbed him.”

“He reacted badly, as I recall,” Thor said. “He yet thought of friend Hulk as a monster, and bore guilt that was not his with alarming readiness and tenacity.”

“Exactly,” Jane said. “And what does Tony call Bruce?”

Darcy blinked. How had she not seen it? She’d already said it, sibs from different cribs are a family specialty. “Thor,” she said, sure her face had gone pale. “Tony calls Bruce his Science Bro, his Brother of Science. Tony didn’t hide the injury because he wasn’t used to us, he hid it because he didn’t want his brother to feel bad about hurting him, even if it was an accident, or unavoidable, and not Bruce’s fault. He hid it because he  _ loves his brother. _ And Tony is a fucking horrible liar, once you get under the playboy mask. He’s lied to people he let know him a grand total of once in his life, and BOTH of them knew he was lying, even if they didn’t know about what. Loki, on the other hand….”

“Has ever had a distracting silver tongue and a way of telling half-truths that lead to an inaccurate end,” Thor finished.

“The best lies aren’t,” Darcy nodded. “Jane, you’re a genius. Thor, you didn’t know you were hurting Loki as a kid, because Loki didn’t  _ let _ you know. He loved his brother and knew you’d do what you’re doing now, which is upsetting to me, and given the gap of how long he’s been your brother and how long I’ve been your sister, would be even worse for him. Loki lied about his injuries, just like Tony, only he’s better at it.”

“Until the strain of such damage and no proper care for it gave way,” Thor nodded. “When he discovered his parentage…”

“He snapped, all the fractures added up and he had no fucking clue what he was doing, except trying to show the  _ one person _ who could have helped him what happened. What that person had let happen.”

“Odin,” Thor nodded.

“No offence, Thor, but I kinda hate your dad right now. How did he think that would play out any way but Loki losing it?”

“The All-Father indeed has much to answer for.”

“He’s not answering anything tonight,” Jane interrupted. “Tonight we focus on the solvable equations. Darcy plus shower plus sleep equals happier Darcy. Thor plus shower plus sleep equals happier Thor. When we get back to Loki we can figure out how to solve for happier Loki. We don’t worry about solving for Odin until later. Order of operations.”

“Never change, Janey,” Darcy said, kissing her best friend on the head as she stood up. “Best of us all, and I include my Star Spangled Man in that. Love you both, and now, shower.” Thor nodded and walked with Jane to her room as Darcy headed for the showers.

<^>

Steve scooped Darcy into his arms as she left the shower room and carried her to their room. She didn’t protest at all, so he prepared to go a little easier on her when they talked about how insane the stunt they pulled was. Instead, when he set her on their bed, she and Bucky held hands, flesh and metal as they told him together about learning that trick. About how close Natasha, their daughter in all but blood, had come to dying with it. How that had been a game. They’d told a little girl it was a game, because the truth was too awful, and sooner or later the lie about a game became a truth.

“So many things we did, we lied about,” Darcy said, her face blank as Bucky rubbed her hand. “We lied to the Red Room and Hydra when we did good things, we lied to ourselves when we did bad things. Our lives were lies told between brief gasps of free air. Sometimes… sometimes I don’t think I’d know what truth was without our team. Without Jane, and you, and all the Avengers, and our friends. I don’t think I’d be any better than the Red Room wanted us to be. There was so much darkness there.”

“Hey,” Bucky interrupted her, moving her face to look into his. “There was darkness, but there was light, too. There was Natka, and we got to watch her grow up into a wonderful, beautiful woman. We had each other, we had our children, we had our mission. We had a strength they could never break.”

“Yeah, we did,” Darcy sighed, and Steve tried to process all of this.

“Children, plural?” was what came out.

“Natka was one of twenty eight in her year,” Bucky explained. “Lena was too… but that did not end well, she took my role as a father... poorly as she matured. Katenka was good with tech, Darcy helped her more than I did. I was more of Marishka’s tutor, nice aim there. Galina was the sweetest. Nika was a good killer but could never blend in. Brina was beautiful and smart, but her attitude rubbed people wrong. Vika loved science, Sima would lose herself in a cover, Zoya was always smiling. There were many we taught. Not all of them made the final roster.”

“They… died?” Steve asked, horrified.

“That is a very flexible word for us, Steve,” Darcy told him. “We removed them as ordered, to prove our loyalty. But they’re about as dead as Dugan. Give us some credit, we weren't going to kill our own kids.”

“They made you… I can’t handle this.”

“Play-Dangling doesn’t seem so insane now, does it?” Darcy asked with a rueful smile. “It’s pretty tame compared to what we were ordered to do, and we trained in it. I know his strength, it was mine too. He knows I taught our daughters to get the best grip, fake the best struggle. I trusted him and he trusted me. I like that trust, Steve. It was one of the only honest things we got to keep, since they didn’t know.”

“Don’t ask us to give it up,” Bucky asked him, eyes on the floor.

“God, no. Never,” Steve swore. “You need it, so you keep it. Just, try to warn me next time. I almost flubbed the line I fed Ross because I was worried.”

“Okay, we can do that, Punk,” Bucky said, eyes lifting. “What do you need now?”

“Just to hold you both.”

They changed into pajamas and curled around him, and Steve wrapped his strong arms around his loves and prayed silently.

_ St. Michael, defender of man, stand with us in the day of battle. St. Jude, giver of hope, be with us in our desperate hour. St. Christopher, bearer of burdens, lift us when we fall. _

<^>

Bucky watched as the team really coalesced, the final missions going off so well all he was needed for was mop-up. He enjoyed carving words he’d heard and, as far as Hydra knew, shouldn’t remember, into walls and doors. A neat little calling card for an imperfect soldier to leave to people who tried to make him the perfect weapon. 

They thought, according to Darcy’s sources, he was remembering slowly, regaining who he was. They’d tried three times that the undercover agents of HERO knew, to detonate his arm. The bomb was still safely in a cage that blocked the signal, but the many heads of Hydra didn’t know his family had removed it, or even that he knew what it was.

He remembered Darcy talking about winning her State Judo championship at eighteen. “I love it when they underestimate me,” she’d said. “It makes the look on their faces that much better when I have them kissing the mat.”

She was right, it felt good to know he was better than Hydra could ever have dreamed, and he wasn’t on their side. He never had been. Each safe house made unsafe, each lab marked with words of scientists who hurt him, and he gave them the pieces of a puzzle he knew they were unwilling to put together.

All things end, though, and soon Darcy got the all-clear. Bucky sat beside his sister on the road home, listening to her explain what she and her cohorts had done.

The cyber-attack had infected the hidden mainframes of the Hydra agents within the world’s intelligence agencies, armed forces and governments. Half a dozen separate attacks wiped computers with swift, brutal efficiency. Still more attacks dumped the more embarrassing secrets the internet for all to see. Allied agency heads were then using those exposures to remove key individuals and replace them with non-Hydra personnel. Once the squids were cut loose, a third wave attack erased their online presence, everything from banking to DMV records, ensuring it would take them some time to regain the power they once held.

“Good job, Sis. You’re a real Barnes, you are, wreaking havoc and confusion.”

“Cry havoc,” Skye said with a serious face, “and let slip the Barnes of War.”

Bucky burst out laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Golden Child- the child who is given excessive favor in the Golden Child/Scapegoat abusive parent dynamic.  
> Order of operations- the order of steps in solving a complex mathematical equation.  
> Dead as Dugan- Dum-Dum Dugan had his death faked in Bodies in Time, he's still alive, just not officially.  
> Kissing the mat- facedown on the floor in a sparring match, an implied final loss.  
> Trim the fat- to remove excess, or fire an employee who's hurting the overall organization.
> 
> Notes:  
> In many cases of child abuse, the abuser manipulates one child into harming another. One method is to absolve the child pushed to harm, and blame the one getting hurt. This is incredibly scarring to both children, and learning as an adult that you were in the Golden Child role can be traumatic. It's a form of moral injury, where the normal moral code that should exist is broken to elicit certain responses.
> 
> It isn't super often, but sometimes people on the Autism Spectrum make connections that seem random because they can't articulate why the connection matters. The only times I've seen that, it hit the other people around like a hammer to the gut because the answer was _so obvious_ once it was pointed out.
> 
> Fictive kin, family formed by choice not blood, often have special ways of talking about each other. Darcy flat out calls Thor and Loki her brothers, but Tony is emotionally reserved and hesitant, so using a nickname that could easily be dismissed to express familial love for a non-genetic brother is more his style.
> 
> The time referenced is when Tony lied to Pepper and Rhodey about the Palladium poisoning.
> 
> The best lie isn't is one of the cardinal rules of undercover work. The less you have to remember about a lie, the easier it is to fool someone into believing it.
> 
> Jane makes the smart call. Being mad at someone you can't confront uses resources better spent on moving in the direction you want to go.
> 
> The Red Room trained multiple children as Widows, eliminating the ones who failed until one remained to take the mantle. Natasha Romanov was one of 28. When she defected Yelena Belova took the name and role, despite having been a close runner up to Natasha. That's part of why there was so much hatred there. In my canon, Yelena also developed an unhealthy romantic obsession with her trainer, Bucky. Bucky and Darcy saw her as their child, as they did all the girls, but Natasha accepted that form of love and Yelena couldn't. Hence grudge.
> 
> Steve's prayer is borrowed from Marion G Harmon's Wearing the Cape series, there called the Unattributed Prayer for Heroes. Both Steve and Hope, the protagonist of that series, are devout Catholics.
> 
> There is a lot of power in being underestimated. There's also a level of power in looking and acting submissive. Bucky is enjoying the fruits of both as he becomes Hydra's own personal closet monster.
> 
> Cyber attacks come in many forms. This one specifically reformatted the parts of drives solely for Hydra use in larger organizations, destroying data they needed, revealed personal secrets of known Hydra operatives, and removed their ability to get their lives pulled back together with "digital death", aka removal from all online databases. Being a ghost is good for hiding, bad for having your license checked or using your credit cards.
> 
> Skye is riffing on "Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of War" which I already think is hilarious as the breed of dog that comes to mind as specifically bred for war is the Chihuahua. Chihuahuas were bred exclusively to bite out the Achilles tendon of the enemy in Aztec battlegrounds.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “Steve said the first thing Darcy asked Bruce was if you were safe."


	31. Home Again Home Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coming home means reuniting the family.
> 
> Family is never as easy as you'd think.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the long delay guys! I had a bunch of stuff hit at once, and this was the thing that got dropped.

Darcy’s first order of business was collecting ‘Tony’ from SHIELD medical. Somehow entering a still and silent room to find her trickier brother sitting leaned against a wall reading a book and humming a song she didn’t know didn’t surprise her. The small pile of candy wrappers and the white hook of a candy cane in the corner of his mouth did.

“Okay, so you like candy canes, good to know. Where did you get them?”

“I can explain,” Loki said, looking up a little guiltily.

“Can you clean up and get ready to be transferred back to the Tower first? I get a feeling that this story is going to require ice cream or popcorn. And we have plenty to tell you, obviously.”

“Yes, a few days ago there was quite a stir and one of the underhealers began hitting a master healer with one of those boards for paper. He did not take it well and was removed by guards.”

“Mm,” Darcy agreed as she helped him chase down cellophane. “I heard the attack uncovered medical impropriety here. Thankfully it wasn’t really a comatose Tony in here, I would have felt bad about that. You can take care of yourself, Tony… is getting better actually, but still… squishy human. Thank you for doing this.”

Loki nodded, and Darcy felt the slight release of a tension she hadn’t noticed as he slipped inside the perfect image of Tony. Figuring that meant he’d dropped what had kept outsiders from noticing him, she waved Thor and Steve in to collect him. They got back to the tower with little fuss, and she noted happily that Five didn’t have a medical squad anymore. And many more repairs had been made.

Tony had detoured to show Bruce, Skye, Simmons and Fitz the repaired lab, and Betty and Pepper had gone along as sanity control, since few of the science oriented types had much in the way of restraint. Clint and Natasha promptly disappeared, and Darcy smiled. Poor things hadn’t had much in the way of privacy in Nevada. Maybe she should feel differently about her daughter going off to do the do, but she wanted Talia happy. If a crazy archer who liked purple a bit too much made her happy, Darcy wanted her to have him.

Steve, Bucky and Thor stayed with her as she had Phil unpack what had happened both in Nevada and in terms of Heracles Burn for them. Loki seemed pleased by the story of rescuing Betty. He seemed more like Steve had been about Play-Dangling.

“Is that safe for Midgardians?” he asked quietly. “You live so much shorter lives, I… worry, that you will end yours too soon. I still have much to learn.”

Darcy got the feeling the worry had nothing to do with learning.

“They explained it to me,” Steve said, sparing them from a repeat of the raw night they’d shared it all with him. “It’s not safe, but there isn’t much in the world that is, and they trusted each other enough to try it, and that’s worthwhile on its own.” He smiled at Bucky. “Some jerk who was too smart for his own good told me once, there’s a difference between surviving and living. Trust is of the living, and I’m too happy to have them living to be mad about it.”

“I wouldn’t worry about learning, Shadow Brother,” Darcy added, “you’re a fast study. You’ve already gone from denigrating the short life thing to worrying about it. That’s good and we weren’t even working on it.”

“You are no longer my only tutor, Shadow Sister,” he told her. “Two Midgardian youths have come to me for training in seidr, and I have been observing them as well. They show promise.”

“High praise indeed, coming from you, brother,” Thor said. “When we set out to free Seidkonur Ross, I too, learned some things. I must ask, for my own heart to find peace… Loki, my brother, did you lie to make me believe you uninjured in spirit as a child?”

Darcy could see the painful vulnerability in Thor’s eyes. She also saw Loki’s jaw twitch, trying to find the best words. But only honesty would let her help her brothers.

“Loki,” she said, laying a hand on his shoulder. “Any answer is acceptable, if it is honest. This is the hard part of what I do, what you have set to study in me. If you need it, I’m here for you. But I need you to answer this honestly.”

“I did,” he said, bowing his head. “I did not want you to think me weak.”

His breaking voice triggered something in Darcy. Something hard and angry, as implacable as an arctic glacier and vitriolic as poisons pumping in her heart.

“Oh, I am going to kill Odin.” Thor nodded and Loki looked at the two of them like they were speaking Sumerian. “Being hurt isn’t being weak, and how could he possibly think that making you believe it would be seen that way and Thor believe he wasn’t truly harming you would become anything but a giant, flaming clusterfuck! I could just….”

“Hoover him,” Bucky said.

“Yes, that.”

“I don’t know what a Hoover is in this case,” Steve said. “Is it close to a Mac the Mountain?”

“Oh, Steve, I got a lot subtler since I tossed the bull-wrestler into a wall when we were sixteen,” Darcy said. “J. Edgar got long acting neuro-toxin poisoning. He knew he was dying, but he couldn’t tell anybody because he built his life on secrets and power. A nice slow, painful sort of death that ruins all credibility before the end.”

“Oh. Yes, given the situation, that might be appropriate, but we do have that rule about offing heads of state. Even if he did precipitate an invasion of our planet, that’s no reason to sink to his level. I recommend you Lindy him.”

“Lindy, Lindy,” Darcy searched her brain.

“Gang, second swap, you made moves on him until his brain went slosh in his head,” Steve supplied. “Did you know he became a queer rights activist after the war? Came back thinking maybe he’d had the wrong idea what was sin and what was unnatural, joined a homophile ally group. I looked him up.”

“Really? I killed one of his friends for calling you a twink.”

“Yep, and then he got his life saved by a convent of French resistance officers who were nuns for their day jobs. The kind of nuns that don’t have any problems whatsoever giving up male companionship, and felt no lustful urges while he lived in their attic,” Steve said with an eyebrow wiggle. “It’s kind of hard to compare someone willing to kill over insulting the way they love, someone willing to save lives with the way they love, and a whole mess of people trying to kill you while saying that way to love is wrong. One of these things is not like the others. And when the outlier on your chart is a deranged Nazi dictator trying to murder people, it’s easy to tell who’s data is skewed.”

“You talked Science,” Darcy said, still trying to wrap her head around having helped turn a bigot into an ally.

“Simmons is very easy to talk to, and she likes to use science metaphors.”

Darcy nodded. Steve and Jemma had naturally formed a nice supportive bond during the low-key therapy. “Okay. So, your considered advice as a lifelong anti-bully advocate and a national hero is to break his brain, present him with hard to contradict evidence of his wrongness, and then let him sort himself out?”

“As plan A, yes. Plan B can be kick the tar out of them if plan A was diplomacy, but not the other way around. You made that rule.”

“I stole that rule from a website about tabletop role-play games. But it is a solid rule. Much like the rule about Dugan not being allowed to modify any previously tank mounted weapon for pump-action hand use.”

“I think he’s still sore about that, Angel.”

“Oh, he is, but not as much as the ban on claiming he learned German because he knows how to say ‘Sprechen Sie Bang-Bang?’,” Darcy said. “Okay, killing Odin is a back-up plan. But we are  _ so _ having words. Strong words.”

The look of confusion on Loki’s face was adorable.

<^>

Steve noticed Bucky getting antsy, not easy to do to a sniper, but he figured it was the mostly unfamiliar tower environment. He nodded and Bucky vanished.

“Jarvis, can you make sure Bucky is okay?”

“Certainly, Captain Rogers. If I may, Prince Loki is showing signs of blood sugar imbalance. I recommend a meal. Shall I place an order?”

“Yes please, I don’t think any of us are up to cooking. What’s on the list of new stuff?”

“The team as a whole has yet to try the Mexican food category. It is similar to the Tex-Mex variant you tried in Arizona, which was well received.”

Steve smiled, he’d liked that, and it was very filling. Loki had shown a liking for spicy foods too, so that worked out. “Alright, find a restaurant Tony likes or we’ll never get him out of the lab.”

“Any specific preferences not on file?”

“Not for me or Buck, he never ate anything like the Tex-Mex and I like all of it, but you might ping the others to whet the appetite and get suggestions. Maybe if Tony has a favorite food to look forward to, he won’t sink into his work as much.”

“Of course, Captain Rogers. May I say, I do appreciate your care for Sir’s health?”

“Of course you can, he made you, so he’s like your Dad, obviously you like people being nice to him, you love him. I do it because Tony’s a teammate and a friend. I just want him to get taken care of if it’s too hard to take care of himself.” A penny dropped. “Jarvis, is Tony… like Jane? She has exercises she does to help with it, and if we get Tony on them… it’s okay if you can’t say, I was just thinking.”

“Sir has not been tested for Autistic Spectrum Disorder, but the exercises certainly cannot hurt any. I recommend one of the team leaders suggests it, but non-mandatorily, Sir can be….”

“Stubborn about authority?” Steve hedged.

“Quite.”

<^>

After filling Loki in, Bucky decided to wander a bit. Everyone living so close together had been reassuring, but also stifling after so long alone. Steve nodded at him as he slipped out, so he knew they would understand.

He explored the finished areas of the tower, took a quick trip to the level still being repaired Darcy mentioned using for training, and discovered the new vent system going in was extra large. That was a bit of a security risk. Climbing inside he began to check it for danger when he heard a sniffle. The part of his brain that grew up on Steve hiding every injury to escape bed rest went on high alert and he ghosted through the vents to the sound.

Doctor Ross, surprisingly enough, was curled up in a corner of the vent, crying.

“Hey, you alright?”

“I’m fine,” she insisted through tears.

“I can see that you are Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional, thanks. I wanted to know if I could help.” She laughed a bit at the acronym. Her dad may be sleaze of the highest order, but he was a soldier and he passed on the humor at least. “Come on, you’re important to Bruce and Hulk and they’re important to me. If I can help I want to.”

“For the world’s most dangerous assassin, you’re very sweet,” she said, one brow arching in the light of a vent cover.

“I’m not that dangerous.”

“The General may not have had the intelligence to go into intelligence, but I still know people in the business. You have an amazingly high kill count.”

“For being a sniper since 1942, I wouldn’t say 160 is that high. Pavlichenko got 309 and she was only active  _ during _ the War. I only did about thirty or so during the Cold War and my time after that as the Asset, which is actually kind of pathetic for a super assassin operating over fifty years. Talia has a bigger count and again, less time.”

“You have nearly double that.”

“Oh, yeah, as far as records go I’m a killing machine,” he agreed peaceably. “Records are written, though, and you know what they say about trusting what you read. When I could, I gave people an out. They agreed to be officially dead, I agreed to not make them  _ actually _ dead. Some of them work for my gal now. She’s great at organizing stuff. Don’t think we’d have made it through the War without her.”

“But she’s what, twenty-four? Twenty-five?”

“Yup,” Bucky nodded. “It’s complicated, time travel, body switching, you know, weird shit. My bar for normal no longer exists. So, what’s a dame like you doin’ in a vent like this?”

“Freaking out,” she said. “I like vents. They’re small and high up on walls, and hard for people to get into and mostly nobody looks there.”

“That’s why I like them too,” Clint said softly as he rounded a corner. “Tony made these bigger so I could get more gear up here. I have a nest not too far from here. You guys echo.”

Bucky weighed options quickly, saw Doctor Ross’s rapid eye twitches from him to Clint and back and made a decision. “Cool, I’ll have to visit sometime, bring a nest warming present. You mind taking Doctor Ross there now? She’s feeling FINE and I don’t think she should be alone, but Steve is probably wondering where I am.”

“Sure, come on Doc, I have a jumbo pack of fruit roll-ups and one of those picnic bags of chips. And a couple stuffed animals, we’ll have you feeling better soon.”

“I just don’t know why you care. Nobody cared before.”

“Lie,” Bucky said instantly. “Steve said the first thing Darcy asked Bruce was if you were safe. People cared, they just didn’t have the resources to help. It’s different. The team cares about Bruce and Hulk, the two of them care about you, and you’re pretty swell all on your own, besides. Ohana means family.”

“And family means no-one gets left behind,” Clint continued the quote.

“Or forgotten,” Betty finished. “Does the nest have sour-cream and onion flavor?”

“Duh, I’m an ex-carnie, not a  _ total  _ savage,” Clint said and ushered Doctor Ross down the vent.

Bucky found a good grate, removed it and dropped into a lab where Fitz shot his metal arm with a Night Night gun.

“We need to work on your aim, but nice reflexes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Underhealer- Loki's way of saying nurse.  
> Master healer- Loki's way of saying medical doctor.  
> Do the do- have sex.  
> Talia- Darcy's familiar name for Natasha.  
> Shadow Brother/Sister- Darcy and Loki's names for each other.  
> Seidr- magic in Asgard.  
> Seidkonur- the feminine form for a magic user, adopted for use for non-medical doctors.  
> Homophile- the name for the queer rights activists immediately after WWII. (Warning: not politically correct anymore except in historical discussions of the era.)  
> Twink- effeminate gay man, at the time it was punk, the word changed, the meaning was the same.  
> A penny dropped- a sudden idea or realization occurred.  
> Nest- used by a sniper it means a place where easy access to things you need on a long assignment are easy to get without removing eyes from a target, as opposed to a perch, where you shoot from. For Clint it's a blanket fort.
> 
> Notes:  
> Being honest can be incredibly hard if you've learned a certain safety in giving accepted lies instead. Having someone willing to validate your honesty is very important.
> 
> J. Edgar Hoover was a corrupt FBI head who died oddly, and I have established him as one of Darcy/Bucky's targets. Mac the Mountain and (the there unnamed) Lindy are characters from the early Bodies in Time chapters that Darcy broke.
> 
> The homophile movement was a peaceful protest movement for queer, especially gay, rights after WWII. They get historical flack for being too accommodating in protests, but they were fairly revolutionary, many activists in that movement joined not because they or a friend were queer, but because they'd seen what large scale homophobia does in the War and came home determined to be the opposite.
> 
> Some convents back in the day had a large number of applicants who wanted in to get out of marriage because they were not into men. Asexual, lesbian, and straight trans men nuns were not uncommon, and as they were aware they were secretly in the cross-hairs, did hide Allied fighters from occupying Nazi forces. They were largely left alone because all they had to do was cite a complete religious ban on male companionship and officers assumed they would not trust an Allied soldier.
> 
> Outliers can indicate the hypothesis is wrong, or that the data sample is not large enough so discounting them is unwise, but it's not data-cropping to point to a specific bit of data as flawed based on source. That's called Skewed Data.
> 
> All three of the Darcy imposed rules were adapted from Things Mr. Welch Cannot Do in an RPG. It's a funny list of very bad things to make a rpg character do/claim.
> 
> Air vents and ducts are not usually as good for crawling about in as you see in movies. They can get cramped and usually only slim builds can navigate them. Large vent systems mean a larger amount of possible movement.
> 
> I averaged for Bucky's kill count. Most of the time I do not include this information, as it is very rude to ask a service member if/how many they have killed. However in canon, Bucky says he remembers them all, so I figure it's a part of his psyche to count and carry that information. Pavlichenko, who we met in Bodies in Time, was a real Soviet WWII sniper with that number of confirmed kills, and is widely considered the best female sniper of all time.
> 
> Betty likes vents because they enable her to hide. Clint likes them for similar reasons, but from a different perspective. Betty went into vents to get away from threat, Clint goes into vents to get better angles to be a threat.
> 
> Betty is showing anxiety over two people when she's in a not great headspace. Bucky does the right thing yeilding to the less threatening seeming teammate to handle it.
> 
> Darcy did indeed start her first conversation with Bruce in Bodies asking about Betty. The team-family is very protective of each other and each others interests, but that is not a family dynamic Betty is used to.
> 
> "Ohana means family, and family means no-one gets left behind, or forgotten" is a line from Lilo and Stitch. I feel it sums up the team family very well, both movie and quote.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “Make Odin treat him fairly, Heimdal, or I’ll poke your all-seeing eyes out!”


	32. Interesting Times

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy redefines normal again, says goodbye to family and friends, and prepares to rush to Tony's rescue.
> 
> Steve redefines family again, learns that sometimes he's out-classed in weird, and helps Darcy not go into shock.
> 
> Bucky redefines himself again, muses on the nature of families, and takes them out on a job for the Avengers.

As the city regained a new normal that involved Iron Man and Thor doing fly-overs and Captain America visiting children’s wards, Darcy learned to enjoy a normal that involved having a digital right-hand man in Jarvis, two boyfriends, a daughter, and two brothers.

“You realize this will be hard to explain to my family, yes?” she asked Loki after he congratulated her on spotting the realest copy out of six only minutes into the longer span of their sparring match. “I left home to get a Masters in Political Science, and the next time I see them, I’m a superhero? With adopted brothers who happen to be Norse gods, a daughter who’s older than me, and friends who regularly break physics to see what will happen. My Aunt is going to flip on the adopted brother thing alone, and that's not even touching the polyamorous triad relationship with my men. My coming out will be overshadowed by all the confusion over the other stuff.”

“I assure you, it will be much harder explaining that I am beloved of the Mightiest Champions of Midgard to my... family.”

“Your Mom will get it, you made sure I knew Frigga was chill. We're sending the collected evidence on your case with you, she'll know why I couldn't let you stay... like that. And I don’t give a fart what Odin thinks until he actually starts thinking.”

“Unfortunately, the Law is Odin’s Word, and so what he thinks has a great impact on my future. Seidkonur Foster is already delaying my return as much as possible, but it will not be long before she has to admit, I can return. I must face my trial. This much I have learned from you, Shadow Sister, if I am to ever be… good, I must admit my failings. I must own where I have been, the dark roads I have walked, if I am to find better roads to my destination.”

“I know, and we’re giving you a pass on what happened under the Mad Hatter’s influence, but the Jotunheim thing still needs to be handled. Again, I say raising you with unknown internalized racism was at fault for that major malfunction, and that was on Odin. Are you sure you don’t want to play hooky some more? My lifetime is a blink to Odin and the other fussbuckets that want to blame you, worst he could do is give you a tardy.”

“I am afraid I must. You, and Thor, and all the other champions and heroes you have introduced me to have been most kind, and my soul-wounds are as healed as they will be in your life. Farther than I dreamed. I shall miss you, my sister.”

“I’ll miss you too, Loki. You're my brother, and you matter to me. Call me if you can, alright? Or letters, I dealt with a very long distance friendship with Steve by letters and notes.”

“If I can. I will not make promises to you I cannot keep.”

Darcy nodded. Three days later, on top of the rebuilt and renamed Avengers Tower, she stood with her other family beside her as Thor and Loki vanished into the Bifrost replacement Jane had jury-rigged. Nobody judged when she looked at the sky and yelled “Make Odin treat him fairly, Heimdall, or I’ll poke your all-seeing eyes out!”

<^>

Pepper and Tony left after Thanksgiving to spend the winter in Malibu, not that Steve could blame them, New York winters were not for everybody. Clint and Natasha were working overtime so they would have vacation from SHIELD to go to something they called “The Fair” and Phil warned him not to dig into, even if Fury kept trying to get him to join SHIELD for more than occasional assistance on harder missions. Steve was grateful for the heads-up, he’d accidentally waded into future stuff he couldn’t handle because Darcy had never shown it to him and he now knew why she didn't look there herself. 

The Harrow Twins and their mother Ciara had come by shortly before Loki left. The boys had wanted to show off what he’d taught them, so now the Tower was safe from basically every form of attack Loki felt was reasonable to expect. Considering his paranoia levels and the fact he  _ did  _ once invade with an army of aliens, that was a big bill. 

Darcy, Bucky, and he had babysat a few more times when Clint was on a mission, and as long as he was fair, the boys minded him, mostly. Explaining why the rules were there and hearing out counter-arguments drastically dropped the number of broken rules, and he even managed to change a few of his own rules because the Harrow boys pointed out he was running on old information. 

Darcy still ran HERO operations, now with Phil, Fitz, Simmons, Skye and someone code named Cavalry on a plane provided by Fury to run certain more delicate ops. Jarvis helped her collate the ever growing web and stay on top of her expanding role. When Steve got restless, he called Nick and went on a mission or two. When Bucky got restless he geared up and did his own missions, or had Darcy pair him with a HERO team. Jane dug into the science behind Asgardian magic, and his family achieved a sort of normal. He and Bucky went to Mass with Matt, Darcy took him to the gym where the owner let them destroy bags after hours, and she and Bucky would go on trips to arboretums and ballet performances and other things they had shared in the spaces between darkness.

Everyone came together in a small South Dakota town in the Badlands for Howard’s funeral, even Peggy and the Howlies. Tony held up until after, when Steve held him as he sobbed and Bruce let a distraught Maria fuss over him. Hulk’s sudden appearance didn’t seem to faze her as much as his sudden shirtlessness. Fortunately, and for reasons he didn’t want to know, she had a spare, Hulk-sized, hand-knit sweater for Steve’s largest teammate. 

Nobody in the town made a fuss over it, and a short, balding man and a pretty, African American woman who attended from Howard and Maria’s local friends assured him the town had seen stranger things before. He guessed he believed them, especially when a panicking red-head who vaguely reminded Steve of Skye ran up babbling about warehouses and artifacts and fudge of all things, and the man, Arthur, ran off in a panic. His companion had only smiled and shook her head.

Despite personal losses, the team soldiered on, kept in contact, even if it was minimal, and the family they’d built was safe. Everything was pretty great, until Darcy turned off a Firefly marathon after a phone call and changed the channel.

Tony had dared a terrorist to come and get him. Thoughtfully providing a home address. Just when Steve thought Howard’s crazy, self-destructive legacy had been stamped out, Tony pulls something like this. He was ranting as Darcy talked Pepper through packing a go-bag and had Jarvis start to pull the records of the woman who had shown up at Tony’s door.

“Wait a second, Pepper, calm down, you can eviscerate Tony later, for now, get to safety. Jarvis, clear the paparazzi out, I can’t believe Tony didn’t consider their safety. Oh, the barriers went up already? Then how did…” Darcy went white as a sheet. “TONY! PEPPER! JARVIS! ANYBODY!”

She stared brokenly at her phone as it went back to her usual screen, a photo she'd taken of Steve sleeping half on top of Bucky, both of them dead to the world and in Bucky's case, drooling a little. Normally it made her smile. Now she looked lost.

“I’ll suit up, Angel,” he said softly, touching her arm.

“I have the team’s emergency numbers, should I call them?” Bucky asked.

“Yes, and I should ask Betty to help me prep the quinjet…”

“Miss Lewis, Doctors Banner and Ross are already headed to the flight bay," Jarvis told them. Steve wondered how much he felt or remembered from his other location. The strain under the even British accent made him decide not to ask directly. "Doctor Ross told me to relay that you should all eat something first.”

“Thank you Jarvis,” Steve said, tossing the high-protein bars from the emergency stash in the sideboard at his loves. “Are you okay, it sounded like…”

“My Malibu house connection was severed, but I retain connections to most of Sir’s specialty suits. The one he was wearing suffered a connection failure, but there is no destruction alert as would happen if the suit or wearer were damaged beyond repair,” the AI said tersely.

“We’ll bring them back, Jarvis.”

“Yes,” the AI said frostily, a vocal setting Steve hadn’t heard before. “You will.” Suddenly he understood why Tony hid Jarvis’s sentience. Being a full person meant a full set of emotional reactions. And someone had just made Jarvis very angry. Steve would bet good money that someone would regret it, and if he didn't already know Jarvis was at his cybernetic heart a good person, he'd be worried about his own safety if he didn't get Jarvis's family back safely.

<^>

Bucky rallied the Avengers, called in the event to Phil’s team, and changed clothes. His Winter Soldier uniform was wrong for this, but he needed more protection than his civvies, so he pulled out a uniform Tony had made as a bit of a joke.

The soft black pants and navy blue double breasted coat felt right. His wing flash patch was the same bright, new blood color as Darcy’s and he had all the same weapon carrying capacity as his Winter Soldier rig. There was a fitted domino mask like the ones in the comic books, but unlike those masks, it had a variable lens cover that acted as heat vision, night vision, telescopic vision, and complete light protection. The eyeless white was eerie, but he didn’t mind. His nose and mouth could be easily obscured by a thin, proprietary filter fitted like his old muzzle-mask but flexible enough to be rolled into a tube not much larger than a fountain pen. He had blue and one that matched his skin, which was creepy head on but good for escaping notice if he moved quickly. He pulled his long hair out of its neat bun to further blend Sergeant Barnes and the Winter Soldier.

At the flight bay, he nodded to Betty (who had told him a while back to use her first name, and given where she got her last, he didn’t blame her for dropping it where she could) and got in the pilot’s chair. Darcy in her bodysuit, refined shock gloves, and belt of goodies took the second chair, for the gunner. Steve and Hulk were two of the few who could bail out quickly if necessary, so he and Bruce took seats in the back by the gangway. Bucky looked over the flight controls as his family buckled in. Funny to think he had expanded from Darcy and Steve to a whole team as his family.

“Ready to save Iron Man?” he teased.

“Ready to read Tony the riot act,” Darcy said. 

“We can pick Hawkeye and Widow up in Virginia,” Steve interrupted her hard voice. “They said they’re just outside D.C. and they have a tracker. We continue to California from there. Wheels up, let’s get our people back.”

“At least our lives are never dull,” Bruce said.

"Mrs Wu was right, it is a curse to live in interesting times," Bucky sighed and lifted the plane into the sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Mad Hatter- Loki still hasn't been able/willing to name Thanos, so they are still using this Darcy-Code for him.  
> Play hooky- usually used to mean skipping school, in this case refers to avoiding other responsibility.  
> Fussbuckets- people who fuss excessively, not a nice term, but not a swear word.  
> Tardy- in academic settings, being late to a class, or the mark saying you were.  
> Soul-wounds- trauma.  
> The Fair- see the related But WHY? work for more detail.  
> Cavalry- Agent Melinda May. In this 'verse she doesn't like the nickname because it was her code name first and she hates worrying about the dual-identity being uncovered.  
> Go-bag- an emergency bag of the bare essentials if you need to go, NOW.  
> Read the riot act- to dress down, or berate someone.
> 
> Notes:  
> Normal is a subjective term, and people can adapt to new normals. That being said, sudden changes (remember it's only been a year since Darcy was a totally normal graduate student as far as half her family knew) can be hard for families to accept. As can telling your family that you are not the standard in gender, sexuality, or relationship.
> 
> Atonement is a major step in redemption, and although this Loki had really good reasons to lose his shit, he did do significant damage while losing it. Accepting that he needs to at least face the charges is a big step for Loki to take. He's likely to not be his best advocate, as gaining a concept of morality is messing with his ability to judge what he deserves (as is his history of abuse) but he's trying.
> 
> Heimdall canonically sees all, Thor would have informed his sister of that.
> 
> The Bus Team is mostly the same here, except Fury knows that everyone (with the exception of Ward who he adds in time for Mike Peterson and the first canon episode as a way of someone keeping an eye on him) reports to Darcy first, and Fury second.
> 
> Skye and Matt wind up passing like ships in the night here because I want to handle that reunion later.
> 
> Yes, this is a Warehouse 13 cameo. I had originally placed the safe house in South Dakota because there are huge areas there with practically no population, but I then realized that was also why Warehouse 13 was there, and decided that any town that is neighbor to that kind of crazy will just assume the not-as-dead-as-reported weapons mogul and his wife living there is just more Warehouse shit.
> 
> Reminder that canon as not directly meddled with by Darcy and the Darcy adjacent still happens, only now Tony is being reckless and dumb not because of untreated PTSD from New York, but grief over his Dad that he can't express because as far as the world knows, Howard died over twenty years ago and Tony moved on.
> 
> "May you live in interesting times" is an ancient curse, and Mrs Wu was the woman from Little China that sold Bucky udon noodles at Darcy's insistence in Bodies in Time.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “Alright, you did not make old mistakes, that’s good. What new and inventive mistake happened?”


	33. Rescues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy sees a familiar face, sings as a form of interrogation, and deals with her family being so much crazier than necessary.
> 
> Steve handles Darcy's lack of objectivity, learns that super serums come in new flavors now, and devises a double cross.
> 
> Tony wakes up in the woods, berates himself, and then gets it together so Darcy won't laugh at him forever.

Darcy was thankful to get the call from Pepper that had them landing short of the wreckage of the house. Not only because Pepper was a good friend, but because it kept her from seeing something she really didn’t want to. She prepped the landing gear, popped down the ramp and let Steve and Bucky drop ten feet to the ground to establish a perimeter. Clint bailed out shortly after and when Darcy finally walked out beside Bruce and Talia, she saw someone she had never thought she’d see again.

“Vikitsa? Devochka?” Her heart lurched. Bucky turned slightly on his position to sweep an eye over her, and with the modifications, she knew he was seeing more than she did when he froze for half a second.

“Sestra?” Natasha asked, her voice softening with hope.

“Stop it,” said Viktoryana, that genius with genetics who was cut for her preference for science over death. Not that her science couldn’t be just as deadly. If they hadn’t wanted her free, she and Bucky might have argued cutting her. “My name is Maya Hansen. I don’t know who you think I am, but I’m not her.”

“Fine, you’re Maya Hansen,” Darcy agreed. Nat felt best in other names too, and far be it from Darcy to deadname a daughter. “I’m Darcy Lewis, and this is a rescue. It’s not an optional rescue, get in the jet.”

“You’re kidnapping us?”

“Kid, did you never learn that when the good guys do it to save your life, it’s  _ rescuing? _ Cap, Zima, Hawkeye, we good on the horizons?”

“All clear,” Steve sounded off.

“Clear,” copied Clint.

“Heat signature inbound from the south, forty klicks out,” Bucky filled in. “I like these filters.”

“Good for you. Everybody grab a bag or a woman and get them on the jet. I’m feeling itchy.”

On the jet wasn’t much better. She hadn’t anticipated any of her girls knowing her face, but Maya was acting like she didn’t even recognize Natka and Bucky. Actually, she was acting like she didn’t recognize anybody, which given their very public intro as a team, seemed off. Then again Vikitsa had always liked absolute lies, covers that could last for years. She didn’t like the flexibility of acting Talia did.

Through a series of subtle finger taps and shifts, Talia and Bucky discussed the whole thing. Talia hadn’t seen  Vika since she was ten, so that was a shifted source. Bucky was reporting UV and infrared alterations consistent with Red Room manipulation, and he thought she seemed familiar. Finally, Darcy couldn’t do it anymore. She sang the song she’d sung the last time she’d seen  Vikitsa, before telling her to jump out of a train and make a break for Dernier and safety.

“Kak uzor na ogne. 

Snova proshloe rjadom. 

Kto-to pel pesnju mne.

Zinmij vecher kogda-to.

Slovno v proshlom ozhilo.

Chi’ix- to berezhinix ruk teplo.”

“Would you stop singing in Russian!” Maya demanded.

“You have a horrible accent, you know,” Talia defended the woman they both believed was her sister.

“Fine, fine, I can’t sing in Russian, I can barely speak it,” Darcy admitted. “No vocal muscle memory at all. Hmm,” she thought and switched to a song she knew only her girls had heard, that had not been on the list of approved songs, that was in English.

“Come my loves, I’ll tell you a tale of boys and a girl and their love story. How she loved them oh so much, and all the charms she did possess. This did happen once upon a time, and as such, was quite complex. He saw and traveled the land she walked. Looking out of her eyes, he became obsessed.

Love is like a storybook story, but it’s as real as the feelings you feel. It’s as real as the feelings you feel.

This love was stronger than the powers so dark, that evil men could have within their keeping. The spells were cast, to steal a heart, but within his mind t’was only sleeping. They said don’t you know we love you oh so much, and lay dying hearts at the foot of your dress? She said don’t you know, a storybook love, will always have a happy ending? Then she swooped them up, just like in the books, and in her mind they could ride away.

Love is like a storybook story, but it’s as real as the feelings you feel. Love is like a storybook story, but it’s as real as the feelings you feel. It’s as real as the feelings you feel.”

Somewhere along in there Talia had begun singing it too, her soft voice adding a layer to it, hitting notes that formed chords with Darcy. Bucky was humming it, and Steve was tapping the rhythm on his shield. 

“Those aren’t the Knopfler lyrics, how did you know them?” Pepper asked Maya, who had been mouthing the words.

“I…”

“It’s alright Maya,” Bucky said. “We could love the girl who loved science more than killing, and we can love the woman she became. We tried to be honest where we could, though that place did its share of damage.”

“I’m supposed to call Aldritch Killian.”

“Wait, what?” Pepper demanded.

“Does this have anything to do with the really confusing project I had to sic the IRS on?” Darcy asked.

“WHAT? THAT WAS MY LIFE’S WORK!”

<^>

Steve cut through the shouting in the jet with a sharp whistle. Honestly, sometimes his family lacked anything approaching common sense. With the noise back down to a level he could hear himself think at, he pointed first to Bucky.

“Background, now. You only.”

“Uh, you remember the talk ‘bout my kids? My daughters? One of them was a real crack scientist, mostly biology. Could make a poison out of anything. But that’s not what the Red Room wanted, so we called her in as dead after a mission went sideways. Her name was Viktoryana, but you know how my girls treat names.”

“Okay,” he said with a nod and pointed at Ms. Hansen. “You, who is Aldritch Killian and how is this connected to anything Darcy would have worried about enough to try to shut down?”

“He’s my boss at Advanced Idea Mechanics, AIM. I’m working on a cellular regeneration serum, something to kick-start the body’s own map of what goes where so we can regrow cells that ordinarily couldn’t be.”

“Like an entire left arm?” he asked pointedly.

“No, not at first, I really never meant it to go that far in my lifetime. I was thinking more like the nerves in an arm. Killian wants full limb regrowth, but I keep telling him, unless he can get me Connors and Tony as consultants, that’s never going to be stable. I think I got the neural regrowth handled, Tony helped me ages ago in Bern. But when we try for limbs, there’s a… glitch.”

“Oh sweet Swear Jar,” Steve sighed. He had loved Erskine like a kindly grandpa, but if he’d known then what that idea would do in the wrong hands, he’d have never agreed to take the serum. “Let me guess, it involves massive external physical change, possibly including complexions that are seen more often in a box of Crayola crayons than in people?”

“Oh, no,” Hansen corrected him swiftly. “I didn’t even try biochemical lensing, that’s insane, you have to tailor each dose to the biology of the recipients, and take dark reactions into account and that’s like expecting the unexpected. Abraham Erskine was a one off in picking good candidates.”

“Doctor Hansen is right,” Bruce said. “Bio-lensing like in our serums wouldn’t work for what she wanted. Bucky and Natasha both got weaker bio-lensing, but he survived on luck and she had hers custom made using her own cells and isn’t nearly as strong, fast or durable as you and Hulk. We can’t ethically test it, but I’m sure she couldn’t regrow nervous system cells. Bucky can’t, we checked the bonding to see if we could adapt the base for a more trustworthy arm.”

Doctor Hansen nodded and Steve mentally slapped himself for assuming she didn’t have a doctorate. “Alright, you did not make old mistakes, that’s good. What  _ new and inventive _ mistake happened?”

“Um… in high doses, lack of emotional regulation and subsequent or unrelated hormone shifts in the endocrine system can cause subjects to… explode?” she said, looking for all the world like a kid caught with a hand in the cookie jar.

“THE HELL?” Darcy burst out.

“Angel, be quiet, I’m thinking.” Darcy stopped talking mid shout. “You aren’t objective enough here. I’m driving, agreed?”

“Agreed,” Darcy nodded.

“When were you supposed to contact Killian?”

“As soon as I got Tony out of the house and in a good ambush spot. He’s a moron with guns though, so I only got out with the fortunate help of Ms. Potts.”

“I thought the Mandarin did that?” Pepper said, rolling with her place as a back-up hostage easily.

“Killian is also a gigantic showboat of the first order. And he hired me for my brain and treats me like an idiot, so I know things he doesn’t think I do. He needed a way to hide the explosions, and then a crazy terrorist with Killian’s flair starts taking credit for wildly destructive bombings. I know what’s actually happening, even if I can’t do anything about it.”

“You have no proof,” Steve said. “Because it would be incinerated.”

“Exactly. If he let me stay in small corrections, this wouldn’t happen. I couldn’t even get a ficus to regrow more than three leaves before it goes boom. We were nowhere near ready for human testing. But it’s my work that’s killing people, so I can’t turn him in. It’s… annoying, being trapped by someone who’s not half as smart as I am because I love my work too much. Maybe they had a point,” she finished in a whisper and Natasha moved to hold her, which the scientist did nothing to stop.

“No, they didn’t, killing a kid is never a point, not a good one anyway,” Steve told her. “Call Killian, tell him you couldn’t get Tony out of the mansion in time, but you have someone else. Nat, Darcy, Clint, you all can do undercover, who wants to be the hapless assistant?”

“Pardon me very much, Captain Rogers,” Pepper said, insulted. “I can be kidnapped just as well as they can and I have an ace up my slightly singed designer sleeve. Killian thinks I’m attractive,” she added with a face of disgust. Doctor Hansen shot her a sympathetic look.

“Well, you are attractive, and it gives you an edge on him if you can get him talking,” Maya said like she was desperately trying to reach for a silver lining she had reason to believe was old tinfoil.

“Alright, tell him you have Pepper. Jarvis, I need a good place for a counter ambush, please.”

And like that, the team was thinking in harmony again.

<^>

Somewhere in Tennessee, Tony Stark was waking up to a world of pain and cold.

“Note to self, next time build in connection to the unlimited power source in your chest  _ first, _ idiot,” he muttered. 

Well, he had to get to shelter, and a phone, and probably food. He wondered when he last ate. He opened his mouth to ask Jarvis and remembered the suit’s connection hadn’t been fully integrated yet and besides that, he had no power for it. And a suit of power armor is basically just a really neat looking conversation piece minus the power part.

“Well crap. Sorry not sorry, Cap.” He looked up. Steve had taught him star navigation out in Nevada. It was almost as cold there at night as it was in these snow-touched woods. He wasn’t entirely sure where he was, but he could take a straight line until he hit something and not circle. 

“Come on Tony, you survived Afghanistan, Iron Monger, Palladium in your blood, Whiplash’s drone army, the Chitauri, and the fucking Winter Soldier himself broke into your house and is now a friend. You will  _ not _ die of freaking snow. You get this shit together or Lewis will mock you forever.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Devochka- baby girl (Russian).  
> Sestra- sister (Russian).  
> Zima- Winter (Russian) Bucky's current call-sign.  
> Klicks- Americanized slang for kilometers.
> 
> Notes:  
> Russian names can take a ton of forms, and Vikitsa is a younger, more familiar version of Viktoyana. Just like Natka is the little-girl name of Natalia, and Talia is her older familiar name. Vikitsa never got a grown counterpart name because she hasn't seen Darcy and Bucky in ages and right now is not in a place for Darcy to feel okay finding one for her.
> 
> In my canon the Red Room events all happened much earlier, and Nat was born earlier than Zola claims in Winter Soldier. She and Maya look younger than they are because all the girls got very low doses of the serum as they aged. Nat has it stronger than Maya because she stayed in the program longer.
> 
> The Russian song is the Russian version of "Once Upon a December" from the animated Anastasia movie. You can find good covers of it on YouTube. I had Darcy sing it to Vikitsa in the Out of Time short Lullabies. Storybook Love by Mark Knopfler is the end credit song of the movie Princess Bride which Darcy modified to fit a tripartite love story with a female rescuer in the same story.
> 
> In Bodies-Verse Darcy put AIM under audit by the IRS because she distrusted one of the projects. In IM3, Aldritch is looking for investors, despite having already had enough capital to have been running human trials of Extremis for a long time. Maybe he needed a cleaner investor after that audit, hmm?
> 
> I really hated how watered down Maya was in the movie, her role was originally much larger, so I'm venting some of that into her career frustrations here. Nerve regrowth would be a fantastic development and honestly would be worth it without regrowing limbs.
> 
> Steve has picked up Tony's habit of substituting words when he wants to cuss, since he is looking to Tony as a model on some levels. So he refers to the Swear Jar instead of swearing.
> 
> Biochemical lensing is actually a thing, certain substances can make certain naturally occurring reactions bigger. Erskine's description of magnifying everything inside sounds like a way complex and basically impossible bio-lensing process. Dark reactions are ones a doctor can't witness except in the outcomes. Any medicine that might cause a dark reaction is dangerous. That can be reduced by using stem-cells (adult not fetal) of the recipient to tailor the treatment, but that's tricky.
> 
> In the movie the word 'regulate' gets used a lot in discussions of people exploding. Since all of the experimental Extremis recipients are vets with horrible damage I assume they also have PTSD, which would add to 'regulating' being important if the trigger is hormonal and influenced by emotional regulation.
> 
> The ficus in question is the one in her hotel room in Bern as seen exploding in Bern after Happy plucked a leaf and it regrew.
> 
> Tony's suit dying on him was attributed to the experimental armor not having a connection to the arc reactor yet, which seems sort of off for Tony. I blame tired or drunk science, which are hardly ever that good once rested and sober.


	34. Reconnection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy hears a message, plays matchmaker, and makes plans.
> 
> Steve keeps her level, watches how the computer elite of the world react to Jarvis and vice versa, and watches.
> 
> Harley Keener adapts to a new level of weird.

“Darcy?” Pepper called, waking her.

“Ugh, yeah? And for the record, I hate napping on planes. Napping on planes always leaves me feeling like something crawled in my brain and died. Like morning breath in my skull.” Darcy pushed herself upright from Steve’s lap. He was, sickeningly, fast asleep on Bucky’s shoulder and incredibly peaceful looking. Damn him. Damn them both, she knew once Bucky was fully down only screaming would wake him. Yet another legacy of the Squids, they both could sleep anywhere and Bucky had two sleep settings, feather light and dead to the world. Meanwhile, Darcy had insomnia and couldn’t get decent sleep in the air.

“I know the feeling,” Pepper commiserated, interrupting Darcy’s mental litany about the unfairness of life and sleep. “I had to go to Tokyo once and Tony… okay, not the time. Jarvis just patched through a message that got dumped into the secure communications buffer in the suit. Tony, lovable moronic genius he is, can’t remember my cell number without a back-up memory, and can remember the voicemail dead-drop system codes for the secure server buffer.”

Darcy was awake in an instant.

“Play the message.”

“Pepper, it's me. I've got a lot of apologies to make and not a lot of time, so... first off, I'm so sorry I put you in harm's way. That was selfish and stupid and it won't happen again. Also, the rabbit's too big. I see that now, I’ll take care of it, I’m sorry. And I'm sorry in advance because... I can't come home yet.” There was a pause Darcy filled by slapping her forehead. “I need to find this guy. You gotta stay safe. That's all I know. I just stole a poncho from a wooden Indian.”

“So… do we wake Steve up?” Pepper asked. “I was going to try, but he’s out solid and I know he has problems with it sometimes.”

“No, this isn’t a Steve problem yet. We need to find Tony and that’s a me and my people job. They don’t know him and he doesn’t know the counter signs. Would it have killed Tony to tell us his location? He told a _terrorist_ his location. That man really is an absolute wreck of a human being,” Darcy sighed.

“Oh, this is nothing, you should have seen him in Bern at the Y2K New Years party,” Maya told her.

“No, I don’t ask Nat about Clint, and I don’t want to hear from you about Tony’s hedonist years. I can accept my babies grew up into babes, but that doesn’t mean I want to know about it,” Darcy warned. Some things a mother should not know too much about.

“I didn’t mean that. It happened, yes, I was in a rough phase and hadn’t admitted I had Underwood tendencies yet, but that part wasn’t very memorable,” Maya said waving off the concern. “I meant the man wrote the equation that solved the cellular level regeneration, while blind drunk, on the back of his ‘hello my name is’ name card that read ‘You know who I am’. He’s brilliant, but a total train-wreck.”

“That he is,” Darcy sighed, then processed Maya’s earlier remark. “You like women?”

“Yes,” Maya said bluntly, chin out, daring Darcy to make a big deal. Darcy smothered a chuckle.

“Are you seeing anyone? Nat tells me there’s this very nice Agent named Lillian, she has some piercings, but an argument could be made that’s a good thing.”

“Are you seriously trying to set me up with a date right now?”

“She spends too much time with Bucky and Natasha,” Bruce rumbled from his sleeping corner. “All three of them, worse than all the grandmothers in India about setting people up.”

“We have romantic souls,” Darcy defended.

“You had him hold you out of a van as it skidded to a stop just to get my girlfriend’s trust so she’d move in with us. That’s not a romantic soul, that’s a crazy brain.”

“I kinda miss the dangle game,” Maya said wistfully.

“We can play later, sweetie,” Darcy assured. “Back on topic, do we know where the fuck Tony was when he sent that?”

“Somewhere that still has racially insensitive wooden sculptures in ponchos?” Pepper offered.

“You’d be surprised at how little that narrows it down.” Sighing, she stuck her head up towards the front where Nat was piloting with Clint. “We need to get back to one of Jarvis’s main centers, detour to the closest one.”

<^>

In Tony’s mountain cabin, which was more like a mansion with log cladding, Steve helped work the tension out of Darcy’s shoulders as she convened with several people online using words he didn’t really know. Jarvis was a full participant, but he appeared on the screen as any other member of the conversation, as a moving avatar, not as a real human on camera. He chose a color shifting wave form of his voice. Steve noticed the color changes correlated to Jarvis’s mood when he spoke, and continued shifting when others talked. It was like tracking a body posture or face. He started lining up colors with emotions, red was anger, blue was sadness, a traffic cone yellow orange was fear. Sometimes they blended, calmer green had not shown up in pure form yet, but aquas seemed nostalgic or wistful almost. There were only a few flashes, mostly when he was pulling out or relaying data from Tony’s past.

The problem, from what he could tell of the discussion, was that Jarvis did not hold all his information in any one place. He had too much to do that. There were servers that held his personal files, his memory, but they only updated with pertinent information every six hours. With the Malibu part of him disconnected, it wouldn’t update his memory core with anything but the most basic information. The team was complaining without offering solutions, so Steve added his own two cents.

“If the problem is disconnection, why don’t you just… reconnect it?”

“Lieu, who the hell is on your line?” demanded a rapidly morphing geometric shape with a male voice.

“The guy who can keep a clear head,” Darcy bit out. “And he’s right, we’ve been looking at this like white hats, like it’s salvage. What if we went black hat on it? Hack into the system and get the data back that way?”

“Is that even possible?” a feminine sounding blue and silver lava lamp asked. “The footage was pretty clear on the damage.”

“That was mostly superficial,” Jarvis said in a rippling teal. “The living quarters took the brunt of the damage, the terminal itself was in a basement and the server was below even that, under anti-tank ballistic concrete.”

“That’s… a scary amount of details, J,” said an icon of shooting stars with an accent Steve couldn’t identify, he also wasn’t sure of gender. “Exactly what side are you on?”

“Lay off, Bog,” Darcy told the outraged foreign voice.

“But that kind of intel is a direct threat! We like Iron Man, he open sources all kinds of goodies and he hires half the people who probe his system if they get anywhere. I want to keep him safe.”

Agreement came from the speakers in a multilayered wave and Jarvis’s colored line of emotion went bright kelly green for a second.

“J, may I tell them?”

“Level two only,” Jarvis said after three seconds of serious thought in purple.

“J knows the layout because he has Tony’s permission to know the layout. He’s been there before, he’s seen it. If Tony trusts him with that after all the crap that’s tried to kill him, then so do I and so should you. This discussion is over. Now, J, can you get at the server?”

From there it went back to words Steve didn’t get, but he was happy. They would find Tony.

<^>

Harley Keener had seen a lot of strange things for being a kid. Iron Man sitting on his sofa was probably one of the weirder ones. Iron Man’s mechanic working was  _ definitely _ one of the weirder ones. Weirder than when the car muttered to him about a faulty transmission weeks before his mom had to take it to the shop. Weirder than when his sister made the dead plants in their mom’s garden come back. At least Harley knew what a mutant was, he had access to Google. Actually, he had access to all the search engines, even the ones at the big universities and the White House, but he tried not to use those. He had to figure their dad was one, ‘cause it  _ really _ wasn’t their mom. That’s probably why dad left, the way mom talked about mutants sometimes. When he got into a big university and made lots of money building stuff, he was going to take his sister and live in a different house and tell everybody he was a mutant so his mom could see what she’d done.

Iron Man’s mechanic was strange, but Harley reckoned he would be, being half of a hero and part machine and also totally in denial about how Iron Man worked. He made Iron Man, but seemed to think he  _ was  _ Iron Man. That’s not how it worked. Iron Man was part metal and part man, it was in the name. The guy in the suit was only part of that. Not that Harley could explain that to the mechanic, especially after a finger had decided it liked him and tried to follow him. That happened once with the blender and his mom threw it out. He’d saved it, like he saved all the machines in town people threw out. Sometimes he could help them, and sometimes they just wanted him to take the parts he could to save other things. Like the metal part of Iron Man wanted him to have the canister the mechanic gave him. That could be useful. He didn’t want the fire alarm going off again to save him.

It was fun, though, watching how somebody who wasn’t able to hear the machines fixed stuff. Harley wanted to learn to do that. Seeing the problems in your head because of how the machines acted, not how they  _ told _ you they felt. It was way cooler than what he did with his powers. Not that he was ever telling the mechanic that, his machine in his chest had very firm Opinions about letting the fleshy bits get too excited. Harley had never met an electromagnet that thought so loud and clear before. He almost didn’t recognize it.

When he showed the mechanic the spot with the shadows, and the mechanic asked if he believed if there wasn’t one for the guy who blew up because he hadn’t gone to heaven, Harley bit his lip. He’d been close enough to see a little of it, before the world whited out and he woke up with a bloody nose. He was messing with how close he had to be to get cameras to show him stuff, and he knew the guy who blew everyone up was a mutant. Nobody else turned orange and glowing before exploding everything. He finally settled for just repeating that it was what people said. 

He knew people who said mutants didn’t have souls, and they’d think that. Harley thought people who saw too much bad sometimes got funny, like the guys who wore the Vietnam hats and all tried to bury themselves when Fourth of July fireworks happened. Maybe a mutant who saw too much bad would lose control, but that didn’t make having an accident  _ wrong _ really. Killing people was wrong, but he died too, so he probably didn’t mean it. Harley worried what would happen if he had an accident. Machines could hurt people, but at least his sister only made plants healthy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Counter signs: phrases used to confirm identity in spy circles.  
> Babes: attractive women.  
> Cladding: a type of wall covering that fools the eye into seeing a wall made of wood or stone.  
> Two cents: opinion.  
> White/Black hats: hackers who do so morally and above board are 'white hats', illegal and immoral hacking is 'black hat'.
> 
> Notes:  
> There are various ways soldiers wind up sleeping when they come home, Darcy experiences insomnia, a difficulty sleeping, Steve and Bucky can cat-nap anywhere, and Bucky switches between vigilant sleep and strong sleep inertia. The issue with planes is more obviously just because Darcy was in a plane to go meet Jane when her guys died (ish, they got better).
> 
> Sometimes people with very high IQs have recall problems, and can remember massively complex things, but forget our own phone numbers. Tony already showed this tendency with his statement his SSN was 5. Pepper isn't actually upset about this habit, but rather finds it equally annoying and charming.
> 
> The message is lifted straight from the movie. I always wondered why he didn't tell Pepper where he was or even try to give her more clues. Darcy is speaking as me in that.
> 
> Maya did have canon sexy-times with Tony in 2000, but her presentation showed her much easier with Pepper and I like adding in queer ladies when I can. Dottie Underwood was the cover name of an early iteration of a Black Widow as seen in Agent Carter and she acts very into Peggy. Enough so that I headcanon the RR as not allowing talk of LGBT issues but also having a side slang referencing the Underwood cover getting honey-trapped (suckered into helping the enemy because the enemy was hot) as a was of saying Lesbian.
> 
> Lillian of the piercings is referenced in Winter Soldier, I'm making her bi here because I can.
> 
> Wooden Indian statues (that is what they are called even by people who don't like the term Indian for First Nations people) are racial stereotype statues often used to advertise tobacco or cigars that are really squicky from a race standpoint. They are also more common than people think.
> 
> Jarvis using a wave form image of his voice and color coding his emotions is about as close as he can get to a face. I picked colors for emotions that match what Ultron was feeling when the body of Vision was created, the magenta picking up red for anger, the turquoise picking up a desire for a better world as he saw from the past (in a messed up way), and yellow for fear, because seriously, nobody tries to kill a whole planet unless they are afraid of it somehow.
> 
> Hackers love open source coding, stuff they can play with and modify and not get in trouble for using for free, and some companies will hire hackers who get into the systems on the 'better with us than against us' idea. Tony does these things because he likes smart people and wants to give them fun toys. As a result, the hacker community is very Pro-Tony and defensive of him.
> 
> I made the existence of mutants canon for Bodies, but never really wanted to pull in a canon mutant character as a POV so far. So I made Harley Keener a closeted technopath. His sister we only hear about is a phytokenetic, a plant manipulator. He's also just plain smart, and has a grasp on big emotional concepts like his Dad leaving possibly having to do more with grown up stuff than him, accidents not making a person innately bad, and PTSD even if he has no name for it.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> Heaven have mercy, because she was all out at the moment.


	35. Chapter 35

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky helps his lost daughter and Pepper prepare for a big con, while dealing with worry.
> 
> Pepper goes into the con, discovers it's not that hard, and gets serum'd, while dealing with Aldritch Killian.
> 
> Steve hears new intel and leads a team to Rose Hill, Tennessee.

Bucky wasn’t sure he liked this plan. He’d probably be okay with it if it were Talia or Darcy going with Maya, he’d seen their undercover skills before. Pepper was a civilian. Yes, living with Tony prepared her for a vast amount of crazy, but she was an unknown in the field. Darcy was laughing silently at him, the bubble of giggles ringing in his head through the link.

_ You’re being ridiculous, Pepper can do this. She’s just playing a slightly less informed version of herself. _

_ I know that, Doll. Doesn’t mean I don’t worry. I like Pepper, she’s nice. What if something goes wrong? _

_ That’s why I asked Phil to get back in touch with the inside guy he found. If necessary, I’ve been assured MacBain can handle it. He got away from Ciara once. _

_ Oh. That’s different then. You gotta keep me updated on where all the hidden aces are, Darcy, or I'll worry when it’s dumb. _

_ That’s fair. Check on Maya for me, will you? _

_ Sure. _

Maya was calmly arranging her hair in one of the bathrooms of the hotel rooms they had picked. The rooms were adjoining and Maya had gotten one room normally while Darcy and Jarvis had changed the records to make the second one unavailable due to malfunction of the shower. Maya would be pulling the con from the rented room and the team would stage out of the adjoining one in case things got bad.

“You look calm,” he said neutrally.

“It’s not like I didn’t spend most of a decade learning to betray people. And then pretending I was someone I wasn’t for the rest of my long, long life.”

“You’re only forty two, and I’m saying no matter how calm you are, you shouldn’t  _ look _ it. Not unless you told Killian about your background.”

“I would never!” Maya stood up and started quietly shouting at him about professionalism and keeping a cover and knowing he was a risky gamble at the start even if she didn’t know she would lose. Her voice never raised higher than normal speaking, but she was obviously angry and indignant as she railed. The training had been good, for all she had left early. She wound down and her breath came just a touch too hard.

“Better, you look a little redder now, see?” he said pointing her at the mirror. “It’s not enough to say the lines, you have to  _ sell them. _ A dozen tiny hints. Here, have some whiskey.” He passed her a small bottle like nicer plane lines served.

“You know this is going to do practically nothing, right?”

“To your metabolism, yeah, it’s funny tasting water,” he grinned. “But it’s funny tasting water that smells like  _ inebriation _ . And an inebriated woman is rarely seen as a threat. I put half a bottle in the room so you can make it look like you drank more than you did. But you need to smell like you  _ drank _ any at all first.”

“Will you stop the nice teacher act,” Maya demanded. “I don’t like dealing with memories of her as you but now you’re you and she’s not and you act like she is. I don't like that that sentence is a thing I just said. Stay in your boxes.”

“We never had boxes to start with. She kept my memories of me, and when she visited, sometimes that wasn’t her, it was me. The real me, not the me they made. Forget the me they made, he’s gone and not coming back. I cared about you too, and I’m here now, telling you, drink your whiskey young lady or you don’t get to play.”

“You are a really bizarre dad-figure,” Maya said, before uncapping the bottle and swishing with it. “And that’s before factoring in that your wife lived in your head.”

“We aren’t married,” Bucky said awkwardly. “We weren’t in the right timezones, and it’d still be hard for three of us to tie the knot.

“Bullshit. Did you or did you not stand by them in sickness and health, richer and poorer, for better and worse? And death  _ tried _ to part you. Death failed. You’re only missing rings. Good thing you spent time in Russia, you still have the wedding band finger on the right hand, where Eastern Orthodox puts it.”

“Yeah, okay, I’m married. And you, little missy, are going to be late to your own recital. One more coat of texturizer and then you go to work.”

“Gah! Fine, out, overbearing one.”

“My daughter, all grown up and fucking over asswipes,” he said with a sniffle. “Seems like just yesterday I was showing you how to pick pockets and poison drinks.”

“ _ Dad _ , out. Now.”

Bucky laughed as he left. Pepper passed him to take her place in the room, and he had to admit she looked right.

“Oh, whiskey. Thank you, Bucky.” He was about to stop her when she took a small sip, swished and blew a mist into the air like perfume from an atomizer that she stepped through. She caught him staring. “What? I had to stay sober at Tony’s parties without  _ seeming _ sober because it was, and I’m quoting His Imperial Immaturity himself, ‘a buzzkill’ if I wasn’t drinking. I also order martinis that are mostly olives so I can nurse it between olives and look like I’m drinking more than I am.”

“Oh. Smart move on the misting. Compare notes with Maya about Killian’s knowledge of your alcohol tolerances and figure out how much needs to be missing from the bottle if you’re both a tiny bit buzzed.”

“Will do. Is my hair disheveled enough?” she asked, touching the ruffled locks. “Normally I’m happy to be one of those people who don’t really get bed head, but I think I need to do more here. Stress tends to show in how you care for your appearance, I can tell how bad a bender Tony is on and for how long he’s been on it based on tee shirt stains. But I have hair that doesn’t muss.”

“Yes you do, and yeah, you need something, but don’t let Maya trick you into using her texturizer. Her hair can handle that trick for looking greasy and limp, yours will just look styled.” He pondered the question of making overly nice hair act strained. Pepper always looked good, she even filed her nails when most people would have chewed them. “Actually, you may want to get it wet, so she can use you cleaning up as a cover for the phone call giving him the room number.”

<^>

Pepper liked talking to Maya as she waited for their kidnapping. She had a sharp, biting wit and a self-deprecating air about her work that was both sad, and refreshing after Tony. She had a feeling not all of that was an act. She was about to offer to cuddle the other woman when Killian murdered the room service guy and took them away. 

Her shock at the sudden brutality helped her hide her knowledge of his impending arrival and Maya’s connection. Surprise isn’t hard to fake if you  _ are _ surprised by  _ something _ , just not the thing you should be. She had survived more than one tedious surprise party that way, and more than one horrible gift. She loved her family, but there was a reason she didn’t visit much unless she was punishing Tony by spurning his money. While many people would have thought that Tony assigning her to buy her own birthday presents was annoying, Pepper kind of loved him for it. She never had to worry he’d mess it up or get the wrong size or somehow decide a rabbit  _ taller than the door of the house _ with arms that looked like boobs from certain angles was  _ appropriate _ . Tony buying her presents never worked well. Giving her the money to get her own was so much less stressful, and if he forgot, she still got a present and could get something extra nice to compensate for the lapse of memory.

She also used already existing anger at Aldritch Killian. It wasn’t hard to be an outraged kidnapping victim if you were, in fact,  _ already _ outraged. She just... never corrected him when he assumed she was outraged on her own behalf. Frankly, she didn’t feel it was worth explaining if he couldn’t look at her and  _ see _ that she was outraged about human trials of Extremis and the whole Mandarin idea and Tony falling away from her… She closed her eyes and shook a bit at that memory, fighting tears. Tony survived, and she was  _ not _ giving Killian the satisfaction of seeing her cry.

Typical self-absorbed asshole he was, he assumed she was scared of him. She didn’t correct him about where her fear was. While she helped Loki learn moral codes, she’d picked up the trick that not correcting an inaccurate assumption wasn’t  _ technically _ a lie. Most people, apparently, lied to themselves better than any outsider could. She figured that was part of why she could watch gory movies, but not ones with the violence off screen or vague. Her own mind made a worse picture than a movie could.

_ Oh, fantastic, he’s  _ **_monologuing._ **

She should have known he’d monologue. Suddenly, irritation overwhelmed everything else. Well, she figured it would have even if she knew nothing else about him, so it wasn’t exactly breaking character.

“Look, Aldritch, it’s been a long day, my bodyguard is in the hospital following a terrorist attack, my boyfriend gave out our home address on national television, I almost got blown up, and the first good drinking partner I’ve had in a while handed me to  _ you _ . Let’s cut this short, this is about Tony, you think he'll help you... he won't.”

“It's more, uh, embarrassing than that. I brought you here because you were once his girlfriend and now you're my, uh..."

“Trophy. Please. Don’t even pretend I’m more than that to you.”

“Yeah,” he said with a smarmy try at humility. “That. Finally the man who had everything handed to him will have something taken away.”

Something in Pepper’s mind snapped. How  _ dare _ he. He didn’t know a single damn thing about Tony. He obviously wasn’t paying attention or he would have seen how Tony was thrusting everything he could at the world, desperate to give enough, to do enough, to finally sleep at night feeling like  _ he _ was enough. Tony might put up a glib façade, but it was really not that hard to look at everything since Iron Man began to see Tony never had things  _ easy _ .

“Actually, he hates having things handed to him.”

Aldritch ignored her as he prepared the injection, holding the lurid gold liquid up to the light as he tapped air bubbles out of the syringe. Pepper briefly considered calling for Maya, but the other woman had her own cover. Some shit you dealt with yourself. She braced as the needle bit and focused on why she was doing this. Who she was doing this for. Tony, her reckless, crazy, selfless man. Happy, who just wanted to feel like he had a place, laying in a hospital bed. Maya, so broken and so strong, the child of other strong broken people, the child of Bucky with his stubborn determination to do better, to be better, and Darcy, her friend and co-conspirator. She thought of Maria, who did not deserve to see her son’s obituary.

And herself. The man playing God with her body now had constantly harassed her. He’d tried to seduce her and to corrupt the morals of Stark Industries she set. He had hurt people she cared about and in doing so hurt her. It wasn’t noble, it wasn’t justice, and there would be no court of law if she acted on her feelings because there  _ wouldn’t be a body. _

He left her and Pepper began to laugh as sweat dripped off her body. He had no  _ idea _ what he’d just unlocked in her. Heaven have mercy, because she was all out at the moment.

<^>

On the other end of the bug pinned inside Pepper’s ultra-durable sports bra made from an experimental anti-ballistic, fireproof, blade resistant, and mostly frictionless cloth, a group of people heard the laughter.

“Anybody feel a little bit bad for the unlucky sap?” A long silence and a few incredulous looks. “Didn’t think so.”

<^>

“Steve?” Darcy woke him with a small shake. His eyes tried to focus on her and failed for half a minute while he blinked. He hadn’t felt this exhausted since the War. Must be the constant worrying, he never had been good leading from the back.

“It my watch already?” he asked her blearily. It felt like he’d just laid down a moment ago, although the cottony feel of his mouth said longer.

“No, Bucky’s still got Pepper’s com, and after him it passes to Bruce. But the town of Rose Hill, Tennessee, exploded last night. Not the whole town, but we have reports of glowing fire monsters and a guy who kills them with seemingly no tools or way of touching them. Who do we know who can weaponize anything and has a slightly insane lack of natural fears about fire?”

“You found Tony.”

“No,” she told him, looking abashed. “I found where Tony  _ was, _ maybe. If it was him, he’ll have moved on, because he has a plan or a trick or something up his sleeve. Killian wouldn’t have moved on him unless he was in a position to do something, not if it would bring Tony’s continued status among the living to light. He needs a ruthlessly effective Mandarin to get shit done. And it could be another of Coulson’s 084’s and not have anything to do with Tony. But we start away from the null hypothesis and it’s the simplest explanation. Additionally, we got into the data from Malibu, mostly, and Jarvis thinks he may have plotted a course there in the time that was damaged in the explosion.”

“Really? Jarvis what’s the status on recovering that, do you know why you would have sent Tony to Tennessee?” he asked the Stark Phone he had taken to carrying so Jarvis had a mobile platform out of the tower and his other building bodies.

“Regretfully not, Captain, and there was a rather embarrassing code malfunction in what I uploaded. I do just fine for long stretches then I end a sentence with the wrong cranberry.” The slight hiss of high pitch static was what Steve recognized as a frustrated sigh. Jarvis did it a lot with Tony, who couldn’t hear those pitches. “I’ll work on that.”

“It’s alright Jarvis, work on what you can, try not to get hurt doing it. Everyone else has first aid training in case of injury, but the only one capable of patching you up was last seen fighting fire monsters in Tennessee. I’ll take a team down there to check it out.”

“Steve, you’re running on fumes,” Darcy insisted.

“We all are, but I’m one of the few who  _ can, _ Angel,” he pointed out. “Do you want to stay on Pepper or come with me?”

“I’d feel better with Bucky here, he’s more protective of Maya, and she seems to accept it. Plus I know he’s good with Pepper, the two of them really bonded once he loosened up enough for her to poke him into healthy talking. I can contact him over the swap link if I need to. Bruce should stay, if Maya or Pepper need help with the formula at all he’s the closest we have.”

“But he’s close to Tony,” Steve pointed out. “Practically brothers.”

“Exactly how bad would you flip your lid if it was Jones or Morita or any of them down in Rose Hill?” she asked, punctuated with a pointedly raised brow. “Bruce stays, I’m not explaining Hulk to already jumpy rednecks.”

“Point taken. Who’d you have in mind, or just us?”

“Nat and Clint are trained spies,” she pointed out. “That means seeing stuff we might miss, Army lunks that we are.”

“You’re not a lunk Angel,” he countered with a kiss to her forehead. “Go get our spies and read them in.”

“On it, Cap. Drink some fucking coffee, you look like crap.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Got the com- is listening to a wire in case of emergency.  
> 084- code for the weird, inexplicable shit Coulson's team looks into for SHIELD.  
> Null hypothesis- a science term, the null hypothesis is "this is unconnected to our question."  
> Running on fumes- totally exhausted.  
> Lunks- dumb muscle, often used for men, but also for Army soldiers in a teasing way.  
> Read them in- prepare them for the mission.
> 
> Notes:  
> MacBain is the surname of the Twins father, for those who skipped the Out Of Time collection.
> 
> The Red Room Girls Bucky and Darcy raised were all born in 1970, and after the fact given "birthdates" of Jan 1, 1970, regardless of actual birth. Maya reset hers to the day she escaped with Darcy-as-Zima's help (May 3, 1982) and is thus 30 on paperwork, but her age as Bucky knows it is 42.
> 
> Eastern Orthodox weddings place the marriage band on the right hand, not the left.
> 
> In Iron Man, Pepper asks for a Martini, extra olives, at least three olives. Filling a martini glass with olives lowers the amount of actual martini, and eating the olives would make the glass empty faster than sipping at the drink slowly to avoid getting drunk. Also, a variable number of olives make it hard to tell if that's the same glass.
> 
> Some hair, especially fine hair like Gwenneth Paltrow has, doesn't do the bed head thing without extreme provocations. I headcanon Pepper as having the kind of hair we'd all like to hate her for that looks Hollywood styled in those casual and post battle shots because other wise her action scenes make no sense. Nat at least has obvious styling product in her hair during most of her action shots.
> 
> All of what Pepper listed canonically happen to her in 24 hours. I'm surprised she didn't kill him sooner. 
> 
> While not the same method as the Darcy/Steve enhancement, Pepper's focus is contributing to her stability the same way Darcy's focus did. Determination + the hormonal balance already being skewed towards homicidally enraged when the reagent is introduced to her system means she's less likely to explode if she gets upset later, since the 'baseline' is set at the absolute max her body/brain can sustain.
> 
> That sports-bra had superpowers, that's canon. Anything else would have died with what she put it through.
> 
> Stress can be a contributing factor to sleep difficulties, including Steve's normal ability to get rested off a five minute nap. Hence his perception of being more tired than he should be.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “You need to talk to my brother. HARLEY!”


	36. Rose Hill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zoe Keener watches the new people, has a conversation with Clint, and decides he brother needs to be in on it.
> 
> Darcy impresses Harley, cuts a deal, and realizes she no longer perceives weird. Not necessarily in that order.
> 
> Natasha watches everyone handle an unwanted intrusion and is glad Darcy's her mom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline Note: Harley was born March 25, 2000, and Zoe was born November 5, 2001. Here they are 12 and 11, respectively.

The town of Rose Hill was in shock, two bombings in a year. Nobody really looked too hard at how little Harley Keener had talked to the man who wasn’t from around here, the one who’d got into that fight with the woman who claimed to be from Homeland Security. Just as well, his sister Zoe thought. She didn’t  _ like _ people looking at her. She hated it. They did it anyway.

Not because she was an X gene mutant, although if she’d really let loose, she was sure they’d look even more. No, just an ordinary congenital defect. She’d spent hours learning the words. She knew the meaning first, it meant she couldn’t hear at all from the ear that was shaped wrong to hold an aid, and she didn’t look like other girls, her smile a bit too wide on her face, her eyes sitting to the side all the time, making her look stupid. She wasn’t stupid. She was actually pretty smart, not that she let the teachers know. The only thing worse than being the deaf weirdo was being the deaf weirdo  _ prodigy. _ Besides, if she let them get away with their assumptions she got to keep watching cartoons when the other kids started to feel guilty liking them. She liked Dora the Explorer, it was a good starter for Spanish if she had the volume up and her purple aid in the one ear that would hold it.

Being smart, and knowing her brother had gone and done something dumb that required her watch and an alibi, she saw the strangers pull in. She was watching as they casually talked to people, the brunette buying coffee was chatting with the guy at the counter. The red-head had gone to see the Sheriff, and the big blonde man was helping Mrs. Davis sweep up her front porch and shooting dirty looks at the neighbors for not helping. The smaller blonde man, with the darker hair, wasn’t talking, he was looking. Like she did. He saw her. Well, he saw her aid.

_ Hi, I’m Clint, this is my name, _ he signed, ending on an H tapped by his eye. He did it odd, like he was holding something back by his ear as his fingers tapped.

_ I’m Zoe. I don’t have a sign name. _

_ Why not? I bet you’d have a very pretty name. _

_ Because only my brother signs with me,  _ she told him.

_ I’ll sign with you. My brother sometimes signs, but mostly it’s his wife. Her name is  _ and he signed an L tracing the path of the sign for mother.  _ Because she mothers everyone. Although Darcy may be worse, I haven’t worked out a good sign name for her yet. _

_ She sounds nice. My mom isn’t that good at it, she doesn’t like I came like this. I think she blamed Dad. He left. _

_ You too, huh? Mine didn’t like me and I got the deafness later. Some people aren’t made to be parents. Some are and don’t get a good chance at the right place and time. My partner is like that, her mom and dad are…  _ His hands stilled as he thought.  _ Complicated. She’s the red head, her mom is the brunette. _

_ They look the same age. _

_ Looks can be deceiving, kid, I’m sure you know that. _ He signed a name, a mix of signs she didn’t know.  _ My partner is older. _

_ What’s in her name? _

_ Oh, we use Russian. It’s Spider, _ he signed in ASL.  _ With some other things. Her mom is Darcy. _

Weird. She’s older than her mom?

_ Darcy is complicated, _ he signed.  _ Maybe I should do that instead. _

_ Instead of what? _

He flashed a sign mixing D’s on both hands with the sign for connection, which he did twice.  _ So did you see what happened here? I want to find my friend. He made my nice aids and I need one fixed. There  _ **_may_ ** _ have been an incident with a slice of pizza and a stray dog. _

_ Why’s your friend here? _

_ Where things blow up rapidly and without reason, Tony may be nearby. He’s a trouble magnet.  _ He laughed.  _ Oh, I gotta remember that one when we talk sign names. _

_ Why? _ She didn’t see what was funny about a friend who got into too much trouble.

_ Iron, _ he signed slowly.  _ It’s part of his spoken name. One of them. Iron Man. _

“You need to talk to my brother. HARLEY!”

<^>

“So,” Darcy said, looking at Harley Keener. “You found Tony had broken into your garage and you decided to help him, which is how you got taken prisoner and he blew up half a town?”

“Not… not exactly,” the kid said, shifting in the seat at the diner she’d gotten. “It’s  _ complicated, _ you wouldn’t get it.”

“Kid, I’m dating Captain America, I have kids with Bucky Barnes, and my brothers are demigods from halfway across the galaxy. I fought in _World War Weird,_ so your problems, they do not impress me. Come back with ‘complicated’ when your issues involve secret government programs, time travel, or alien deities.” She took a slug of her milkshake. It was good. So was the look of shock at her utter nonchalance over his situation, not because she didn’t care, but because her own bar for normal was six feet under by now. “At least try me. If you shock me, I’ll buy you and your sister any toy in town.”

“I was trying to help Iron Man. Not his mechanic. They’re different. I don’t trust people, people leave and lie and let you down. I trusted the  _ machines, _ and they said he was worth trying to repair. I don’t like it when people throw things away that can still be repaired if you work at it. Besides, he might have gotten me out of town. I need to get out of town,” he said lowly.

“Huh, tech whisperer,” Darcy said. “New. I’ve seen metal, and Steve and Buck assure me there was a guy who was basically immortal and grew claws back in the War, but I was busy then. Worried about the power growth spurts?”

He gaped at her and Darcy ate a french fry to hide a grin.

“You’re not upset I’m… y’know?”

“Dude, I was on the front lines of mutant lib before mutant lib was a thing. I was  _ literally _ liberating, like out of cages. I _really_ hate Nazis, but then, who doesn’t?” She lifted a shoulder philosophically. “Your Mom and Dad haven’t looked at schools? I hear there are good ones if you look for them. I never needed to, my kids were raised in Communist Russia, where home schools you, but I hear they can be useful.”

“Mom doesn’t know, she  _ can’t. _ Dad left because she can’t.” His face was dark. Nope, nothing doing, Darcy had to fix this. Looking across the diner she saw Clint animatedly signing with Zoe Keener. The daisies in the vase were turning away from the sun to face her and getting more lively, not less, with each moment, like fast-rewind footage of wilting.

“Tell me what Tony wanted you doing and I’ll pay for you both to go to the best one I can find. I know a good lawyer who will take the case that not giving you proper education in the ethical use of your powers is neglect if she gets in the way. I’ll pay him too. I just need to make sure Tony’s not gotten himself in too much trouble. If anything happens to Tony, his kid will go off the rails, and that is no good for anyone.”

“His kid?”

“The other guy in the suit. He’s... like a reverse you. So, do we have a deal? Info on Tony’s request in exchange for tuition to, hang on a sec,” she paused as her phone vibrated. “Jarvis recommends Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters.”

Harley nodded super fast. “My sister too.”

“If I didn’t my daughter’s circus brat boyfriend would steal her and take her out to his sister-in-law’s farm. Look, they’ve already bonded.” She pointed and Harley’s jaw dropped. “Oh, no. I know that sign. Clint! No.”

“Aww, Darcy,” he whined. She made the two fingered ‘I’m watching you’ gesture.

“So, spill,” she said to Harley, as though she hadn’t just vetoed an idea from two booths away.

<^>

Natasha watched as her Mama flipped through code on an old laptop with the same idle elegance of a woman with a catalog. She wondered what was going on in that head. It was either a brilliant plan for saving the day, or an internal debate about whether cranberry would replace raspberry as the new deep color lipstick. There were no tells, which meant every word she said was a delightful surprise. Natasha liked to think she’d inherited that, in the odd sideways relationship she had with her young mother.

Her reflections came to an end when a different mother came into the barn the two young ones had set them up in.

“What are you doing in here?”

Darcy unfolded from her place on the couch, laptop going to the seat cushions gracefully. It took someone with similar skill to see the deadly possibility behind the loose body and simple economy of motion. To see the killer in a ballerina. Natasha doubted the woman had it.

“I was invited, as were my family. Mainly because the other option was attempting to lug half a ton of power armor back to our jet, and it’s just easier to wait for the repairs to finish here.”

“What are you saying?” The woman’s face pinched and Natasha decided she supported Darcy and Clint in the desire to take the children. She was too stern and unyielding, and that was coming from the Russian spy-slash-assassin.

Darcy sighed. “I’m saying that this barn has been commandeered by the Avengers until a wounded teammate recovers. It’s the same for Iron Man as it would be if I got shot in the leg.”

“You ain’t an Avenger. You’re a girl no better than she should be.”

Natasha braced for the easy violence she’d been trained to, but Darcy laughed.

“Dude, what rock were you under during the Battle of New York? I’d like to see you tell the Chitauri I killed that I’m no better than I  _ should _ be, I bet it would keep them from ever wanting to come back, even if my best friend and my brothers made it so they can’t. Don’t you think, Nat?”

“Hmm,” Natasha gave it due thought. “I still say footage out of the Kitchen is a superior deterrent. There was a woman in  _ very _ good recreation 1400’s English Infantry armor and a sword. I liked her.”

“Nope, my money is on Hulk,” Clint added. “He punched out a  _ space eel.” _

“Jane,” Steve said firmly. “Not everyone will fall two stories, break a leg, convince the world’s most massive seven-year-old to pass her a gun, use it to shoot mercenaries, then play with the crumpled remains of what once was a mercenary’s large gun while singing the periodic table of elements. And she’s not even one of our combatants. Fighters are an obstacle, but  _ civilians? _ When you get the civvies fighting back, you  _ leave _ . Why do you think Hydra never made it that far into Romania? Those resistance movements were _brutal.”_

“Point,” Darcy said. “Can I restate a previous entry of field hockey girls?”

“No reiteration,” Clint reminded her. “Once you change it you cannot go back.”

“Fine, roller derby,” Darcy said. The woman was looking at them like they’d gone insane. Natasha blinked.

“We’re in plainclothes,” she noted and Steve slapped his head. He reached behind him and hauled out the shield, holding it up.

“Sorry Ma’am. We forget we aren’t in a war zone sometimes.”

“I don’t care what nifty hunk of metal you have, you  _ freaks _ keep away from my kids! Harley, Zoe, we’re leaving. I’ll call the sheriff’s office in the house.”

“No, you won’t, Mom,” Zoe Keener said in that flat way people born deaf can have, her face angled to put her eyes at her mother. “Heroes need saving too, sometimes. We’re helping. If you try to hurt them, I’ll stop you.”

“Zoe! It is not like you to be this  _ ungrateful _ . I am your  _ mother-- _ ” Abruptly, she tripped, and a thick vine hauled her back.

“Did you know kudzu can lie dormant for several years? I did. I’m helping them and going to school in New York, and so is Harley.”

“Freak!” the outraged woman burst out, but before she could get much farther, Steve was across the barn, shield in hand.

_ “Never,” _ he said darkly, “speak to your children like that again. Mutants have saved my life, fought and died for freedoms you take for granted. If  _ anyone _ here is being ungrateful, it’s  _ you _ . Get. Out.” He stepped back and nodded to Zoe who dropped the vines.

“You’ll need to cut them back now. I don’t know how to ungrow things, and we’ll all be trapped in an hour if we leave it. Kudzu is  _ fast.” _

Natasha pushed off the wall. “I will go. May I use this axe?”

Harley nodded and she got to work, ignoring the retreating woman. Thank the lord her mother only ever embarrassed her by being too lovey. Those kids deserved better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> ASL: American Sign Language (yup it's different by country, just like spoken languages).  
> Commandeered- taken for use by military/law enforcement in case of emergency.  
> No better than she should be- being improper or living down to expectations.  
> Kitchen- Hell's Kitchen, the neighborhood in New York.  
> Civvies- soldier slang for civilian clothing and those wearing it.  
> Plainclothes- a law-enforcement way of saying not in uniform.
> 
> Notes  
> A congenital defect is a condition from birth that either impairs or causes total failure (death) in children born with it. Zoe's isn't too bad, she's deaf but can hear with hearing aides, and has a few physical abnormalities like the inability to shift her eyes back to center and a club ear (the one she can't fit a normal aide in).
> 
> Being a prodigy is already hard, it gets worse if said prodigy also has some disability. That's when the people who want to get sappy over how you 'overcame your difficulties' come out of the wood work.
> 
> Dora the Explorer is an American based cartoon show that teaches basic Spanish skills and was referenced in Iron Man 3 with Harley's sister's watch.
> 
> Mrs. Davis is the mother of Chad Davis, the soldier who died from Extremis. Her neighbors shunning her after her son blew up a building fits with what we see if Rose Hill's mentality, but Steve would still call it bullying.
> 
> Sign language uses special signs to indicate people, these are sign names. Clint's is the letter H (the first two fingers together and pointed out, the others and thumb folded) tapped by his eye as he would pull a bow-string. Sign names often use the first letter of the real name and some sign that connects to the personality. In this case H for Hawkeye and the bow action, tapping the eye as a visual pun. Signs as puns are big in deaf communities, and some are even in the language, like the sign for milk passing the face, because it's pasteurized (past your eyes). Zoe does not have a sign name as it isn't that important when you only sign with one person, but Clint feels she should, because it's a big part of the community. Nat's sign name is in RSL, Russian Sign Language, to honor her heritage.
> 
> World War Weird is a pretty common name for WWII among the historians who study the less-conventional sides of Hitler's campaign, because he did some bizarre stuff. I would imagine as both a history nerd and a fighter on that front, Darcy would call it that too.
> 
> Mutant lib is a riff on Women's lib, the equality movement. I assume in a world with mutants, that would be a thing.
> 
> Economy of motion is the practice of getting from position A to position B swiftly and without any extra movement to do so. Dancers, notably ballerinas, and skilled martial artists tend to cultivate it as a habit. Other skilled martial artists or dancers can tell what type of economy of motion is what, but your average person isn't going to see it as anything odd.
> 
> The reference Nat makes about the recreation armor is to another work of mine, Chapel of the Damned, which while not in the series can be considered canon. The work deals with grief, loss and memory, as such it is very raw emotionally, mind your headspace.
> 
> I know they are called 'leviathans' in canon, but I still call the flying worm-ship things 'space eels' and because I can, so does Clint. Other people can call them by the formally adopted name.
> 
> Romanian resistance movements in WWII were brutal, both in the vicious way the violent parts were done, and in the use of local legends and the general opinion of Romania as a place Weird Shit Happens to turn mutilation of corpses and other messed up stuff into nightmare fuel. Fuck with Romania, and Romania will fuck with you, only harder.
> 
> Field hockey (or lacrosse) and roller derby are sports that both have mostly women teams and are known for brutality and savageness in play.
> 
> Deaf people who have never been fully hearing have occasional difficulty making their spoken words sound right to hearing people. If you want a good example of how it sounds, put on headphones playing white noise loudly, record yourself saying a few phrases, then take the headphones off and play it back to yourself.
> 
> Abusers, especially if the target has a disability, tend to squash rebellion against abuse by framing it as 'being ungrateful' and implying the victim should be happy they get anything from the abuser. This is particularly harmful to children.
> 
> Kudzu is a fast growing plant in the South that can in fact lay dormant for years in drought conditions and in good growing conditions, cover entire houses overnight. It's terrifying, and you can see houses covered by it completely dotted like Lovecraft's shambling horrors across the rural south.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> My svobodny, potomu chto oni ne mogut zabrat' nebo.


	37. Reinforcements

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhodey is glad Darcy knows what's up and won't let a teammate face danger alone.
> 
> Roy MacBain is glad Darcy is someone he can follow.
> 
> Maya is glad she has a family.

Colonel James Rhodes was no fool, which is why he didn’t even wait a full minute after Tony called in with information and a few small requests for his newest superhero campaign -- the one that had him reported  _ dead _ , yeah  _ that _ one -- to use the secured link Jarvis gave him to call Darcy. It was the mature, responsible thing to do, and therefore Tony had probably not even considered it in his giant guilt-ridden genius brain that was hardly ever set to ‘common sense’.  _ Practical _ was Rhodey’s job in their friendship.

“So, my best friend is a moron with a crusade,” he opened. He knew preliminaries were largely wasted on the strange, authoritative, millennial woman with no military history and a soldier’s humor.

“One, you did not invent that problem, you know who I’m dating. Two, what else is new? He’s been like that for years. Next time you see him, if it’s before I do, tell him I’m using his credit cards to get some mutant kids into a decent school that can handle the power thing, and possibly pay a lawyer to wrest guardianship away from the mom if she decides to get nasty.”

“Who are we talking about again? He won’t care. He’ll probably build them a tree-house. One that takes up a whole damn  _ arboretum.” _ Rhodey never used Tony’s name in these talks, neither did Darcy. It was a special kind of paranoia when the conversations were so transparent, but it made them feel better with the eyes and ears on Rhodey. “He decided to go storming the castle, he gave me coordinates. Advice?”

“We have ourselves a Luthor,” she told him and Rhodey thanked God and the guy who sold him his first Superman comic book that he knew her codes. “Hot Mama is on the inside, along with a flip, and we have some hidden aces, but you know him, he’s gotta do this shit  _ alone.” _ He could practically hear her eyes roll, and the part of him that saw her as a superior officer approved of that unwillingness to send men in without back-up.

“Like hell. I’ll put the toe tag on him myself before he does it alone.”

“Same,” she agreed solemnly. “Is it just me, or are we getting jaded in how crazily destructive our friends are before it phases us?”

“Probably, I’m on approach to the site now. Want me to stay on the line?”

“Yes please, I like healthy communication. It’s the secret to a strong relationship.”

“I do not need to know, thanks.”

“Are you sure?” she asked. “Because I still have like an entire page left in my book.”

“Woman, I am  _ ace. _ I don’t do that stuff.”

“That’s why there’s only a page left.  _ Sheesh, _ I’m not going to hook you up with somebody with the wrong sexuality, dude, that’s  _ tacky. _ Unless you’re also aro, if you are I’m totally telling Clint you stole his spot as the aro-ace. Not because I’m not cool with that if you are, because it’s a horrible pun and I’m  _ not _ wasting it.”

“I am  _ not _ aromantic, I’m  _ demi _ , thank you,” he replied primly, catering to her drier side of humor. “Now tell me what the fuck I’m doing in an empty warehouse.”

“When is a warehouse not a warehouse? To quote Admiral Akbar,  _ it’s a trap, _ ” she said. “Send J your GPS, leave on the com and play dumb.”

Rhodey cussed and activated the tracer in the suit.

Time to follow Tony’s dumb ass into hell again. At least now he had back up when he did that.

<^>

Roy MacBain looked at the file passed to him through untraceable channels. He knew they were untraceable, he recognized the hand that coded them, nobody ever broke those, although how that hacker had ended up with the establishment, he’d never know. The file was on a woman who might be called on to give him orders in the next few days, as the foundations of his current employer’s power were shaken. The one he’d have to follow, if he ever wanted to get Barra out of prison to see his children and their mother, to be able to protect them. Darcy Lewis.

Strong fighter, she, he decided -- not from the reports, which were thin, but from the way she moved in the video footage attached to the source-less email. She cut through crowds like a sheepdog cuts through a herd. Good ability to lead the willing-but-terrified, he saw in the report from New Mexico. Not prone to letting panic affect her work. An even better ability to work alongside the highly trained though, he thought, based on the fact that New York still existed and she’d fought then.

Yes, she could tell him where to strike and when, and he’d likely do it, as she didn’t seem to get picky about  _ how _ her orders got done, as long as they  _ did _ get done. And she was friendly with legends and beasts, so she  _ probably _ wouldn’t care what he looked like  _ while _ he did the job. He stepped out for a smoke break even though he didn’t smoke, and dialed a number.

“'S e seo Roy, feumaidh sinn dòigh a' sealltainn deagh rùn. Gheibh sinn air ais Barra, nuair a Freagair mo ghairm an àm airson am blàr a 'ruighinn.”

“Tha mi gad thuigsinn,” his cousin’s voice said.

“Call na feadhainn eile.”

“Hey MacBain, stop speaking that jawbreaker gibberish and get back in here,” his supervisor called from the door. Roy hung up and headed in, head above the man who gave his orders, for the moment, anyway. That was likely to change suddenly in his near future. There were definitely worse people to turn on than this weak, wee little excuse for a man, he decided.

Probably, the woman he’d bartered some service to was one. As Kipling had noted long ago, the females of any species tended to be more dangerous than the males. And Roy MacBain of the great, if somewhat diminished lately, Clan MacBain hadn’t lived this long by discounting that. Neither had his brother, which was why he was in jail, not a coffin. Only the handsome turncoat lass he’d fallen head over heels for, enough to be arrested by, was now in the sights of a worse enemy and if he knew his brother, he’d never forgive it if Roy didn’t do everything he could to let Barra see his lass safe in person, let alone the wee bairns she’d born him. Roy personally felt that she was more than capable of defending herself and the children as well if they held any of Clan MacBain’s blood. He didn’t say so to his brother, though. As any old woman of Scotland could tell you, if you want to win, you never argue with women, crazy people, or men in love. An argument flitted in his head that the last was a form of the second, but the saying stood.

Time to get to work.

<^>

Maya fidgeted with the USB drive her sister had passed to her before dropping her off at the hotel with Pepper. Natka hadn’t said anything about what was on it, but Maya still knew. There were very few things a daughter of the Red Room would keep on her person at all times, and only one she would give to another person.

“You okay, Hansen?” Killian asked. “Not getting cold feet are you? Extremis is  _ your _ baby, we couldn’t have done any of this without you.”

She smiled at the poorly concealed threat. “It’s um… that time of month,” she lied. Killian paled and gave what he thought was a comforting look of sympathy. “I’m going to take my laptop into the quiet room and work with a heating pad on my back, if that’s okay.

Killian didn’t even fight her on her appropriation of his own special bunker. He’d equipped the room with everything he needed to help regulate his changes, to keep the serum from being dangerous. He’d also made sure it was soundproof, and that’s what she needed now.

She put the drive in the slot on her laptop the moment the door locked. The program on the drive popped up an icon, a cartoon spiderweb. She clicked it, and held her breath as a chat room opened up.

“Hey Nat, we’re not scheduled for another--” the woman on the other end of the video call paused. “You’re not Nat.”

“I’m Maya,” she said, biting back tears. “But Katenka would know me as Vikitsa.” 

“Vik--” Her sister paused, unshed tears bright in her eyes. “How? When? Nevermind, there’s time for that later. What do you need?”

“I helped a madman, and I need him stopped,” Maya said. “Mama and Papa are on that, though, so I guess… I just need my sisters.”

“You have us,” Katenka said. Or Ekaterina, Maya supposed she couldn’t use the child-name for the proud woman she saw now. “Keep the drive, I’ll reprogram the chat to see it as your login, not Nat’s, and I’ll send her a new one. Welcome home, Sestra.  My svobodny, potomu chto oni ne mogut zabrat' nebo.”

“They cannot take the sky,” Maya repeated back the answer phrase, “because we are free.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Arboretum: a large, indoor, live plant display, usually with trees.  
> Luthor: a reference to Lex Luthor, billionaire super villain in the Superman franchise.  
> Hot Mama: Pepper's code name,  
> A flip: someone turned to their side within an agency.  
> Hidden aces: secret advantages.  
> Ace: asexual, someone who does not feel sexual attraction to others.  
> Aro: aromantic, someone who does not feel romantic attraction to others.  
> Demi: someone who can feel attraction (in this case romantic) to others if they have a solid platonic platform from which to build that feeling.  
> Wee: small (Scots)  
> Bairns: children (Scots)  
> Sestra: Sister  
> My svobodny, potomu chto oni ne mogut zabrat' nebo.: We are free because they cannot take the sky.
> 
> Notes:  
> Yes, Darcy keeps a book of all the single people she knows for matchmaking purposes.
> 
> Aro-ace means Aromantic Asexual, but it sounds like 'arrow ace' a name for a master archer.
> 
> I headcanon Rhodey as a Demi-romantic Asexual for a number of reasons, most of which will devolve into me pulling up screen clips of the first move and going "SEE!" if I go into them. Just accept the representation and move on.
> 
> The Gaelic conversation translates roughly as "we have a way to show good faith. We can get Barra back. Answer my call when the time for battle arrives." "I understand." "Call the others." The specific translation of 'good faith" is chosen because Roy is a criminal of a criminal family (arms runners, mostly) trying to impress a law enforcement agency to get his brother's sentence reduced.
> 
> Maya still thinks of her sisters with their diminutive child-names, so Natasha is Natka and Ekaterina is Katenka.
> 
> "When in doubt, blame your period" is good advice that Darcy DEFINITELY gave her daughters. Killian may be an idiot, but if a woman on her period wants the quiet room to herself, you don't argue, not even when it's your special just for you room.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> "Doctor Maya Hansen. I accidentally made human beings into high power bombs and my boss shot me a few minutes ago, so I’m a little scattered.”


	38. Family, of a sort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy worries about Maya, worries she spooked the kids, and then informs them they just got a family.
> 
> Steve makes sure the kids get protected, helps Darcy talk to her people, and forms a plan.
> 
> Bucky sees a new side to Maya, accepts the old side of Clint, and prepares to hurry up and wait.

Darcy watched the pieces of the newest armor streak across the sky as she loaded the last of the Keener children’s things into the jet. They were going to swing north to drop the kids off safely with Betty at the Tower, then double back for the main fight.

Maya had been radio silent, and it was starting to worry her. She tried everything to relax, but got nowhere. Finally, Steve gave up on trying to let her work it out and unbuckled from the five-point flight harness he was wearing (the kids were watching, and he believed in good examples for all he was willing to be a reckless asshole when it was just other adults) and moved to bury her face in his chest.

“You will survive this,” he told her.

“My baby is radio silent, Steve. You can’t treat someone you got through nightmares and math homework with the same objective distance as you would another asset.”

“From the things I’ve heard about where you had to raise them, I’m not sure the math homework wasn’t  _ scarier,” _ he said with an exaggerated shudder. She slapped his arm and he laughed. She smiled at him.

“You’re a dork.”

“Your dork?”

“Yeah,” she sighed. “My dork. Mine and Bucky’s. You really think she’s going to be okay?”

“If not, we’ll go in and make her okay.” He rubbed gentle circles on her back. “I won’t let her down, if only because then you and Pepper will have to play rock, paper, scissors to decide who gets Killian. I don’t want that, I think it will involve too many actual rocks and sharp objects. And I have this feeling Pepper knows how to make  _ paper  _ dangerous.”

Darcy let out a short bark of laughter. “Pepper’s too classy. I’d be starting my throw and she’d have already shot him. You do realize she took out Stane and Hammer, not Tony, right? She blew Stane into bits with a building sized arc reactor, and did a citizen’s arrest of Hammer while the droids at the Expo were going off the rails.”

“I know, I listen to Tony too, Darcy. And hey, you know Pepper thinks that Maya’s a real pip, she’s not going to let your daughter get hurt.”

“True. Wake me when we get close to the tower. Or Maya’s com comes back online. Whichever happens first,” she said as she snuggled into his arms.

“Should you really have been saying all that in front of us?” Zoe Keener asked.

“Aww, crud,” Darcy sighed. Life had not prepared her to raise kids. Outside of a scary superspy manufacturing plant of a training program, that is. “Sorry, I raised my kids in Assassin Prep, I forget not all kids are as okay with my job as that.”

“I almost strangled my mom with a plant that  _ eats houses,” _ Zoe deadpanned. “I meant, isn’t that all classified or something? I’m not sure two random kids you offered to take to school are supposed to know that kind of stuff.”

“Oh, kiddo, you aren’t just  _ hitching a ride _ , we’re  _ adopting _ you. You deserve a real parent and society failed to give you one, so we’re giving you a ton of them. It’s what we do,” Darcy explained. “Fix the things other people won’t or can’t.”

“And that makes you family,” Steve added. “So, you are entitled to know what’s going on with your Aunt Maya and how much we worry. How else will you know we take care of our kids right? If we still worry when they’ve grown up and go off to take on supervillains, imagine how much we’ll care about  _ you _ while you grow into your powers.”

“You people are  _ weird,” _ Harley Keener added, his voice filled with more awe than the phrase usually held. “I like it.”

“Good, because we aren’t changing now,” Darcy quipped. As always, her irreverence made her heart a little lighter as she dropped into a light doze.

<^>

Steve smiled at Betty when her eyes went hard as Harley Keener explained the situation to her. He would bet a lot of people thought her compassion made her weak, but he’d also bet a fair number of people lived to regret those thoughts. Betty wasn’t violent, not in the ways Darcy and Natasha were, but she was no push-over either. She had that same core of emotional strength he saw in Hulk, and paired it with the sharp intelligence she shared with Bruce. It was no wonder she fell for Bruce, he thought, he had all the best parts of her hidden in himself, and she saw it, even when he hid it. Steve didn’t buy the line about opposites attracting, outside of magnets anyway. His own loves held the best parts of him, they pushed him to want to show those parts more, prove the things they shared with him existed, just by being themselves. And he could see where Darcy and Bucky shared things as well, where they helped each other be stronger.

As Betty walked off with the kids, the wall Zoe’s eyes fell on illuminated with projected letters relaying Betty’s words, Steve’s phone rang.

“Darcy, it’s Maya, I’m putting her on speaker.”

“Devochka, are you alright?” Darcy said the moment the screen showed the call was open.

“Let it be known, bullet _ proof  _ vests are a figment of Hollywood imagination, and Kevlar does  _ not  _ make a shot to the ribs hurt less. But nothing’s  _ broken, _ it’s just not working.” Steve frowned at the phrase, but Darcy’s face relaxed. “Speak to boy blunder, I need to take the antidote to the experimental epinephrine replacement I injected myself with.”

“Uh,” Tony said. “Why don’t I remember Maya being this hardcore and when did you start using Russian pet names with her?”

“She’s my mother,” Maya said, clearly from a distance away from the phone.

_ “Oh, _ gotcha. How did I not see that? Oh, wait, duh, you didn’t want me seeing it, so I didn’t.”

“Hey, look,” Steve ribbed, “he  _ can _ be taught!” Darcy giggled and Steve smiled before getting serious. “Why didn’t you call us, Tony? We would have helped, you’re  _ family, _ you loon.”

“And that worked out great for my  _ other _ family,” Tony snapped. “Rhodey had to take that stupid paint job because I’m not selling weapons to his bosses, Happy almost died…”

“And none of it was your fault. You have a martyr complex, and I say this as a practicing Catholic,” Steve said. “Trust me, when Steve Rogers of the Great Brooklyn Crusades tells you that you’re taking on too much responsibility for things you know it’s time to get off the cross and let someone else take a crack at it.”

Darcy’s phone rang. She answered it, listened, then leaned over the phone Steve was holding as Tony tried to rationalize. “Did anybody at a nice mansion complex order a freshly un-ironed patriot? If not, you also have ‘splaining to do for Rhodes.”

“Rhodey’s here?”

“Yup, hang on, I’m putting us in group-mode,” she said and did a quick motion on her phone before tapping it to Steve’s. “Rhodey, you’re live.”

“Barely. Did you know this guy breathes fire? He breathes fire Tony! I am  _ not _ okay with this kind of weird, because he breathes fire and he  _ took my suit. _ He took War Machine, Tony.”

“No,” Steve said in a horrible moment of realization. “He took  _ Iron Patriot.” _

“That’s a horrible name,” Tony said.

“It’s a name that’s on the guest list for the White House and Air Force One, Tony. Killian doesn’t care about the quality of the name, he cares about the doors it opens,” Maya said. 

“Shit,” Darcy swore. “He’s going after Obama.”

“Um, who’s the other woman on the line?” Rhodes asked.

“Oh, hi, Doctor Maya Hansen. I accidentally made human beings into high power bombs and my boss shot me a few minutes ago, so I’m a little scattered.”

“Hey, you’re three decades out of practice. We all get rusty,” Darcy consoled, before looking to Steve with a nod.

“We need to isolate the source of those broadcasts, take the face of the Mandarin out of play. Find out where the Iron Patriot is, get there and assume everyone nearby is in danger. We won’t know what to do or where to go until then. Coordinate on your end with J-coms,” he instructed, using the code name for the small encrypted communication devices Jarvis ran for them in the field.

“Sorry, but I’m fresh out of tech, Cap,” Tony said, settling under the commands. He always took a moment of irreverent banter before getting to work. It almost made Steve miss Dugan and Morita’s ritual pre-battle bickering, and the inevitable filthy joke in French from Dernier. Almost.

“Like Mom and Dad would send me in unprepared,” Maya said scornfully. “Meet us at the ugly fountain, Colonel Rhodes, I’ll get us equipped even if I’m not good for active duty yet. I  _ hate _ getting shot in center mass, and they  _ never _ do it when you have time to just take a nice nap.”

“Yes Ma’am, Doctor Hansen. Rhodes out.”

“You know what we need,” Steve supplied, “get on it, you two. Oh, and Tony, we hired a lawyer to argue a custody case for the kid who helped you in Rose Hill and his sister using your money. We’re also getting them enrolled in a specialized school using it. Sorry, not sorry.”

“What in the…” Steve could practically _hear_ Tony’s brain grind to a halt on the twenty things he was worrying over. “Never mind that, I find the face of the Mandarin, find Iron Benedict Arnold, get civilians to safety, call you. I got this,” he finished.

“Good, Captain America out.” He hung up before Tony could realize he purposely dropped that bomb to force Tony out of guilt and into action.

“You’re sexy when you’re sneaky, Rogers,” Darcy said with a wink. “Let’s roll.”

“You got it, Angel.”

<^>

Bucky was happy to get the clear from Maya, less happy when Natasha and Darcy carried her into the hotel in a two-person evacuation hold.

“Nat, Mom,  _ seriously, _ it wasn’t even high caliber! I can walk. I walked to the rendezvous.”

“Shut up and let me love you,” Darcy ordered. “Bed, food, we’ll find you a good doctor soon. You’re lucky I didn’t just take you to the Tower.”

_“Mooom,”_ Maya whined, the very picture of a petulant pre-teen.

“What did you give her?” Bucky asked Steve. Not a lot could put his girls that deep into their childhoods, non-existent as they were.

“Prescription strength Tylenol. She mostly burned through it on the flight,” Clint answered. “This is normal. Whining is a way to attract attention, even if you feel like it’s silly to want. There’s some plausible deniability to it asking for your parents to come make everything better doesn’t have. If the parents don’t, it’s not because they can’t or won’t, it’s because the kid didn’t ask. Good parents will try, even if they know they can’t fix it all, and seeing that reaffirms the child’s ability to trust in the caretaking.”

“That sounded like a textbook,” Bruce noted.

“It should, I was paraphrasing. Seriously, you think I was gonna let my sister raise her kids  _ alone? _ Dude, have you met me? It’s not like I wanted to use mimicking. My Dad was  _ awful. _ Why do you think I ran away and joined a circus as a child?”

“To be honest,” Bucky said carefully, “I wasn’t sure that you  _ did _ run away to join a circus. It seemed implausible and I assumed Nat was letting you cover for something embarrassing.”

“Nope, actual carnie,” Clint assured him with visible pride. Bucky suddenly found himself reevaluating every conversation with Clint where the circus came up. It all hung together far too well to be a lie.

“Huh. What’s our move?” He looked at both Darcy and Steve, as either one could be running the op now that Tony had been found.

“Tony and Rhodey are looking for the face of the Mandarin, and the stolen Iron Patriot armor, and will contact us when they know where we’re going,” Steve said.

“Ah, hurry-up-and-wait detail,” Bucky nodded. That was an old game from the War days, and by  _ game _ , he meant form of bureaucratic torture on par with medical supply requisitions.

“Yup, sadly.”

“It’s a chance to catch a minute or two of fucking sleep,” Darcy said. “Enjoy it while it lasts.”

“Amen,” Bruce and Clint chorused.

“Dibs on the second bed!” Clint cried and Bucky rolled his eyes but said nothing as Natasha went with him. She deserved a little softness. And modern beds felt like marshmallows, anyways. He could totally handle kipping down on a thick blanket in the corner with Darcy and Steve. In fact, it was all he wanted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Radio silent- not communicating while in the field.  
> A real pip- a treat, a wonderful person.  
> Devochka- baby-girl (Russian)  
> 'splaining- just a purposeful mispronunciation of 'explaining', lifted from the TV show I Love Lucy.  
> High caliber- large bullet size.  
> Kipping down- to lay down to sleep, British slang that came home with American soldiers post WWII.
> 
> Notes:  
> It really is very different to objectively weigh the abilities of someone close to you. You'll either want to see them as better and more special or as smol and needing help. Some people can gain that ability to see their kids as the full humans they are and weigh their strength accurately. Darcy is not one of them, for all she is a brilliant strategist about other people's strengths.
> 
> Betty is a walking example of "do not mistake my kindness for weakness." She is equally strong as Hulk, just in a different way, using a more passive 'unmovable object' strength paired with a high EQ (emotional intelligence). In many ways, Hulk shows the parts of Bruce that he has in common with Betty more clearly than Bruce himself does.
> 
> "Opposites attract" is not always that true. While that sort of relationship can be fun and exciting and some people make it work, it's easier to form strong bonds where fundamental things are the same.
> 
> Bullet proof vests are not as much bullet proof as bullet _resistant,_ and getting shot will always hurt, no mater what ballistic protection you have. That said, they can save your life even if the impact does manage to crack a rib.
> 
> "It's not broken, it's just not working," is a common Russian joke based on their language which has two ways of saying broken, one meaning 'will never work again' and the other meaning 'not working now'. The first is often translated as broken, the second as not working.
> 
> In the movie Maya injects herself with Extremis to threaten Aldritch Killian. This Maya would never do that, so I'm saying she had a side project of a better Epi-pen (epinephrine as is used to treat anaphylaxis) and used that in a fake out, with a Kevlar vest under it in case he shot her to short out the reaction.
> 
> "Get off the cross and let someone else take a crack at it," is actually a thing my Catholic mother says. Of course my family are less traditional Catholics (or more traditional if you want to argue that they live their lives based on the actual teaching not the stuffy capitalistic misogynistic crap that came after) and may be less reverent than many.
> 
> I don't know of any phones that can transfer calls to three way calling like this, but I know of phones that can transfer files like pictures or contact info this way, I'm just assuming StarkTech is better than what's on the market.
> 
> Benedict Arnold is famous in American history as our first traitor, who sold military secrets to the British government during the Revolution. He was turned while in Washington's ranks, so he does not count as a foreign spy, but as a traitor to his people. Hence the re-purposed Iron Patriot becoming Iron Benedict Arnold.
> 
> A two-person evacuation hold places the clasped arms of the two people doing the carrying under the thighs and at the back of the person being carried, so that person is sort of sitting.
> 
> What Clint says about whining is true. If you want to get a child to stop whining as it hurts the ears, teach them that they will more likely get what they want, when they want by explaining the desire clearly to an adult. Even then it won't work if they're embarrassed by what they want, say the fussing of the mother, so it won't vanish entirely even then. If the whining is not about wanting things, it's more than likely a desire for attention, and giving it to them will not 'encourage' the behavior. Trying not to encourage whining by avoiding giving attention often does more harm than good.
> 
> Mimicking is a way of using your own experience with parents to parent your own child. This either works really well, or backfires into a chain of abuse. Clint wisely avoids that with his sister-in-law's kids.
> 
> Hurry up and wait is a common soldier's slang for the parts of war that are really dull. You can't move to fight yet, you can't totally unwind like on leave, you're stuck waiting, needing to be ready on a moment's notice.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “I’m pretty sure Captain America only has to salute the flag, man.”  
> “You do outrank me, sir.”


	39. Game On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy rallies the troops as the final battle with the Mandarin kicks off.
> 
> Steve meets Colonel James Rhodes.
> 
> Bucky spends some quality time with Clint.

Darcy was nudged awake gently with a bottle of cold herbal tea and a phone. She thankfully slugged back the grassy tasting stuff Bruce prepped and checked the phone, which had a text from Jarvis. Considerate of him, not to disturb anyone with a vocal call when they were tired.

**Sir has new information; President Obama has been taken by the hijacked Iron Patriot armor to the Norco oil tanker. We request all available backup, sooner rather than later.**

“Thank you, J,” Darcy said to the phone, knowing the odds of it doing anything were slim with his focus on his Dad. Turning, she poked a still sleeping Bucky in the ticklish spot over his ribs. “Up and at ‘em soldier boy, we got work.”

“Gah, my mouth feels like something died in it.”

“Use some mouthwash and suck it up, buttercup, the President was kidnapped, we need to move.”

“Fine, fine, I’m moving,” he groused. She knew he wasn’t really that mad, but complaining in the morning helped him anchor to the here and now. The Squids never would have let him bitch about waking up. She smiled and pushed up to stand and look at Bruce, who had handed her the bottle of tea and the phone.

“Steve ready?”

“Yeah, I woke him first, since you have the easiest circadian rhythm to mess up. You needed as much sleep as you could get.”

“Totally, thank you. Speaking of that, are you okay coming with us? You’ve been on the com for a while now. Rest is, as I so often remind Jane, a thing.”

“Oh, I know,” he reassured her with a dry grin. “And we won’t be going with you. I consulted the Big Guy. The tanker Jarvis pointed us to has crude oil in it. We both know Hulk has a hard time not doing collateral damage and neither of us is willing to risk, and this is a quote, ‘all the nice fishies and water plants’. Apparently, he likes wildlife.”

“Well, we knew he was green,” Darcy said. “I bet we could use him for PR later, hook you guys up with, like, Audubon or Sierra Club to do a thing about being nice to the planet. Hulk covered in tiny songbirds would do a lot for his rep, and I know he can stay still enough they perch on him, I’ve seen it. Or something like that. I dunno, I just woke up.”

“We like Project Greenworld,” Bruce offered. “It’s run by kids, so Hulk doesn’t feel as left out of things as the more adult oriented stuff.”

“Good, when this is over we can put together an email asking if Hulk can go help. In the meantime, go home and sack out for at least twelve hours. You look like six miles of bad road.”

“Thanks Darcy, I will. I’ll be taking Doctor Hansen with me, the Tower has the stuff to give her a new life, since Killian basically flushed her old one. Before you say it, yes, I know she’s invited to stay as long as she wants, but I know a mind like that isn’t going to be happy hiding with us. She needs a scientific alias to work under or she’ll lose it.”

“Good man,” Bucky rumbled as he clapped Bruce on the arm. “Take care of her.”

“I will. I hope leaving you without our two heaviest hitters isn’t a problem.”

“I have options,” Darcy assured him. “Go take my kid to the Tower.”

“What now?” Bucky asked her.

“Now, I make calls and you get everyone battle-ready and into the jet.” Bucky snapped a sassy salute and she stuck her tongue out at him before dialing the number Phil gave her for the inside guy.

<^>

Steve dropped out of the jet onto the deck of the Norco in time to backhand a glowing guard into the water with his shield before the guy leapt to the hovering jet like he seemed to be planning on. The fire wasn’t that unusual for him, the African American man in the polo shirt reloading his sidearm was a bit new, though.

“Colonel,” he said respectfully, tapping up a salute. Rhodes blinked at him.

“I’m pretty sure Captain America only has to salute the flag, man.”

“You  _ do _ outrank me, sir,” Steve pointed out as he tossed the shield into a three-ricochet path that took down four Extremis enhanced soldiers. “Where do you need to be? I’m on escort.”

"The President is up there,” Rhodes said, gesturing up at a pair of cranes holding the Iron Patriot armor. “And please don’t ever call me sir again, my name is Rhodey.”

“Okay, I can do that. I’ll clear you a path and we can haul him down together.”

“Sounds good. Tony’s on the opposite side of the tanker.”

“We know, Lieu’s on it. Hawkeye’s finding a good perch with our back-up sniper and when she’s done dropping them off, Widow will be heading to Pepper’s location. We do pretty well at the teamwork thing, you know, when we actually get  _ invited _ to the party.”

“Yeah, I’m still pissed Tony made my invitation  _ fashionably late,” _ Rhodey said as Steve tossed his shield again, clearing a landing and knocking out someone approaching from the flank. “You didn’t happen to bring Hulk did you?”

“Oil tanker,” Steve explained. “Big guy didn’t want to risk it.”

“Big guy or Banner?” Rhodey asked with keen insight into how the team worked. Steve supposed Tony would have shared Bruce’s unfortunate fear of his larger half with his best friend, although the parts of him that played Darcy’s shadow game hated that.

“Both, actually. Hulk likes animals, oil spills hurt animals, and he tends to do best with inanimate object smashing, and that’s less than ideal for protecting animals when you fight on an oil tanker.”

“Really?”

“Tony got him a subscription to one of those animal magazines marketed to kids for Christmas this year. He got Bruce a gizmo I can’t actually pronounce the name of.”

“Huh,” Rhodey said as he shot a new guard. “That’s strangely thoughtful, seeing as he had no clue what to get Pepper.”

“If he’s anything like his father, his gifts to friends will make sense and his gifts to women will either be needlessly flashy and expensive, not what anyone would call a thoughtful gift, or both. He gave Peggy a set of real silk stockings once in the War. She didn’t  _ wear _ silk unless completely necessary for a mission. If I recall, that’s why she hit him in the head with the butt of the trophy pistolet that Jones and Denier gave her.”

“Wow, that was a horrible choice for her. I only met her once, when Tony and I were in school together, but I can tell you she was  _ not _ the woman you by personal items for. She struck me as a ‘weapons, booze and gift cards to knitting shops’ kind of lady.”

“Pretty much. Although I never saw her knit.”

“I think she learned so she could hide shivs in her purse without anyone asking why she needed a ten inch hardened bamboo stake.”

“Ah, that  _ would _ explain it. Duck,” Steve instructed, hauling Rhodey behind the shield to ricochet a bullet back at a team of soldiers. They reached the President, hanging in the Iron Patriot armor and Steve took up a guard post while Rhodes snapped into a more serious mode to evacuate the Commander in Chief.

<^>

Bucky slipped into the mind of Zima easily, although that was expected, he had been that man longer than he’d been James ‘Bucky’ Barnes, at least on paper. The enhanced soldiers provided an interesting mix of challenge and ease. They moved faster than any other targets he could recall, but they glowed like signal beacons, but they also wouldn’t go down for long unless he really focused his shots to be lethal. It was… interesting. Broke up the monotony of the sniper’s job.

“Man, this shit is  _ weird _ shit, and I’m on Delta Squad,” Clint bitched good-naturedly. He also knew it was important to keep the mind flexible while on the job, he just did it differently. “We handle weird shit on Delta, and this shit is out-weirding my normal weirdness.”

“Suck it up, buttercup,” Bucky shot back. “Damn, I’m starting to sound like Darcy.”

“That’s a good thing,” Clint said. “It’s like people who look like their pets, we unconsciously mirror those we love most. I didn’t wear leather for SHIELD work at all until I met Nat and we started working together. I was strictly a tee shirt and combat pants guy, maybe a ballistic vest, but she was getting crap for her choices in uniform modification, so I ordered specialty tack leather and made myself a more appealing target. She orders pizza the way I order it, pepperoni and extra sauce, even though ordinarily you have to hold a gun to her head to get her to eat processed meats. I didn’t see any of that stuff as that odd until Phil pointed it out. He said it showed a good level of willingness to fit each other into our lives.”

“Huh, that  _ actually _ makes sense. I can’t believe my son-in-law is giving me dating advice.”

“Wait, what? Son in… no, I’m not married to Nat. I think she’d kill me for proposing, actually, she hates the institution of marriage with the blinding intensity of a thousand dying stars.”

“Yeah. I know, that’s why you aren’t my  _ future _ son-in-law. You’re as married to her as I am to Steve and Darce, and I had it pointed out recently you don’t have to have  _ said _ the vows in order to have  _ done _ the vows. Or did you  _ not  _ do the whole ‘in sickness and in health, for better or worse, richer or poorer, so long as you both shall live’ jazz?” He made sure to put the inflection that conveyed a warningly raised eyebrow on the question.

“Nat’s going to have to actually follow through on one of her bi-monthly death threats to get rid of me now,” Clint said with a tone that communicated his internal eye roll, without looking away from their targets. Bucky heard the click of the coms going on. “Hey, bets on what happens if I shoot a flame-stopper arrow at them?”

“It acts like a glue trap until they break it off, five bucks,” he said.

“Leaves them unable to use the fire punching thing, also five,” Darcy chimed in.

“It does nothing and I stab you to death with a grapefruit spoon when we go home,” Natasha said.

“Love you too, Nat-Nat.” The bow string hummed and a distant fizz was heard. “Aww futz. Nat wins.”

“I always win.”

“Stop being smug Pauk,” Bucky chided. “Do you have eyes on Pepper?”

“Yes, and she is  _ very _ impressive. We’ll need to get her more training, but I’m quite proud of how she’s handling being enhanced.”

“WHAT?!?” demanded every voice on the line.

“You didn’t know?” she asked calmly, betraying her surprise to those who knew her.

“Communication, Pauk, it’s a thing,” he growled into the line, firing another head shot. “So is tact.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Sack out- get solid sleep.  
> Look like six miles of bad road- look worn down or tired.  
> Shivs- in this case, a weapon made by sharpening something to a point.  
> Nat-Nat- Clint's affectionate term for Natasha.  
> Futz- a non-swear expletive used by Clint. In meta, because Marvel can't market too many swears to an all ages audience, but in my canon because he hangs out with Laura and Ciara's kids and doesn't want to make them mad.  
> Pauk- spider (Russian). A pet name for Nat that both Bucky and Darcy use.
> 
> Notes:  
> There are many natural alternatives to caffeine or energy drink ingredients that are not as harsh on the body. Given Bruce's sensitivity in canon to heart rate and adrenaline changes, I doubt he'd want to be drinking the hard stuff, so I headcanon him as having an extensive repertoire of herbal mixes, such as a ginseng/lemon-grass tea sweetened with papaya and beet juice.
> 
> Circadian rhythms are natural sleep patterns, and some people are prone to having them disturbed, while others can go off pattern a few days without that many side effects.
> 
> Bruce, like many scientists, has trained himself to be able to go long stretches without sleep, or with only naps, but unlike Jane and Tony, does keep an eye on when that's no longer sustainable.
> 
> Hulk in the MCU always runs toward nature when fleeing a threat. He has, on-screen, hit up a jungle, a temperate forest, and a boreal forest. Thus my headcanon that he is uniquely aware of what wildlife wants and needs, and is touchy about safe habitats being endangered.
> 
> Audubon, Sierra Club, and Project Greenworld are all internationally recognised ecological protection organizations, and PGW is run by kids. Check them out, they're all cool orgs to work with.
> 
> Polo shirts like Rhodey wears in IM3 are way unusual and useless in a battle zone. So to be clear, Rhodey's race is a descriptor, his shirt is a weirdness factor, not the reverse.
> 
> Colonels do outrank Captains, and even in a mildly dangerous situation (for Steve, this is mild) showing respect up the chain of command with a short salute and the honorific 'sir' are good form. In a peaceful situation, Steve would wait for verbal permission to relax, but given the circumstances, he takes the acknowledgement that his salute was seen and understood.
> 
> Rhodey, while Air Force and not Army, was raised up in the military on tales of Captain America. He sees Steve's experience topping his rank, even though the labels are the opposite. Steve on the other hand, was in the Army when the Air Force and the Army are the same branch, and respects the status of a higher ranked officer.
> 
> Tony is at the same time very thoughtful and caring with his giving, and also totally clueless about giving to Pepper. This is why she used to buy her own presents, but he's still feeling out the romantic side of things and buying gifts is traditionally a thing you do for loved ones.
> 
> A trophy gun (a pistolet is a type of handgun) is one taken off a dead enemy. Some people find the custom distasteful, but others see it as practical. In the middle of a campaign it would be hard to shop for gifts for each other, so I choose to believe that between stuff from care packages, things they might pick up in liberated towns, and yes, trophy weapons, the Howlies cobbled together thoughtful gifts. Howard liked throwing money around though, and wanted to prank Peggy.
> 
> Knitting needles are terrifying.
> 
> Adapting your behavior willingly to fit another person's preferences, or to help them feel better, is a good sign of trust and teamwork. Clint describes choice-mimicking, a common sign of healthy co-adaptation to a partnership. Had they done any of these things because the other told them to, it would be unhealthy. Picking up phrases, foods, or even clothing styles from a friend is normal. Now, most people would not make themselves bright purple high-durability leather armor because their friend was being teased, but nobody ever called Clint "most people" either.
> 
> Bucky is taking Maya's observations on what makes a marriage to heart. For most of the Avengers, a wedding does not a marriage make and the Trio and Nat/Clint are already married, sans wedding.
> 
> Grapefruit spoons are also terrifying, in that they are the bastard offspring of spoons and knifes.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW?!”  
> “Well, it’s past midnight, so… Tuesday.”


	40. Boss Fight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy witnesses trust exercises, and an unusual proposal.
> 
> Steve witnesses a new form of 'normal is a dryer setting' and has a merry Christmas.
> 
> Bucky cleans up with new friends, while defending the old.

Darcy was grateful for the assists Jarvis was lending with the Iron Legion. That didn’t mean she liked it when a suit went buzzing by her at top speeds, or watching Tony drop off ledges with only the trust Jarvis would catch him. She knew their digital team-mate would never let Tony be hurt if he could help it, but still, it was nerve wracking. She could get where Steve came from on the Play-Dangling. At least the battle against the Extremis soldiers was winding down and only Aldritch Killian and a few obviously higher rank hench-people were giving them that much fight.

She’d just vaulted up to a bit of scaffolding to stay away from a particularly nasty piece of work that reminded her unpleasantly of Schmidt when Tony screamed. She saw why in a moment and thrust a hand out to snag Pepper’s arm. They were tucked in close to each other, so both of them heard Killian’s creepy boasting over the com.

“You really didn't deserve her, Tony. It's a pity. I was so close to having her... perfect.”

“That’s seriously what he calls it?” Darcy asked Pepper as the other woman wrinkled her nose. “Damn, you were right when you told us he’s a creeper.”

“OK, OK,” Tony said in a panicking rush. “Just wait, wait, slow down, slow down! You're right... I  _ don't _ deserve her. I never did and I spend every day trying to. But here's where you're wrong: she was  _ already _ perfect.”

Pepper beamed and Darcy helped her vault back up onto the platform. She joined them moments later and ended up just standing by Tony as Pepper batted Killian around like a cat with a catnip mouse. It was pretty amazing and she loved the look on Tony’s face as Pepper kicked Killian off the platform.

“You said you didn’t do sentimental,” Pepper accused as she turned. “We’re coming back to that.”

“It’s not sentimentality if it’s factually true. I love you Pepper. Wanna go kill bad guys with me?”

“We already are,” she pointed out.

“I meant forever, you and me and these weirdos who adopted themselves into our family. Pepper Potts, will you make me the happiest superhero on the planet and be an Avenger?”

“Of course, Tony. Let’s start with him.” She turned and used a vaulting move Darcy knew she had to have learned from Nat to land feet first on an Extremis soldier’s neck with a cracking sound.

“You’re totally squeeing like a schoolgirl inside, aren’t you?” Darcy asked the billionaire beside her.

“Wouldn’t you, if that woman agreed to make you hers?”

“Point, let’s go, the outer edges seem to be mopping up and I think I saw Rhodey am-scray the President earlier. Final boss battle time.”

<^>

Steve was happy to have Natasha appear at his back as they picked soldiers off to buy some escape time for Colonel Rhodes and President Obama. He was happier to hear Tony ask Pepper to join the team, and to hear her say yes. In fact, wanting to congratulate them was his main reason to move in towards their last known position on the tanker.

“Strategic retreat?” Nat asked him while the last batch tried to get back up.

“Nope, happy for Pepper and Tony, that’s all.”

“Ah. Do you think she likes cake? I feel this might be a celebration where cake becomes a thing to provide. I think my bakery will do a Congratulations on Becoming a Superhero cake.”

Steve shrugged as he dropped down a level to trot up to Darcy as Killian was ranting about how he was the Mandarin.

“We knew that already!” he yelled, channeling seventy missed years of berating umpires into it.

Suddenly the night was broken by a loud, long howl. A few basso growls and a couple cat screams joined the answering call.

“What the hell was that?” Killian asked. Pepper shrugged elegantly and looked at Darcy.

“Back up. Jarvis, please don’t target the newcomers,” she said into her com with a serenity that bordered on insane in that place and time. What looked for a moment like a large red wolf leapt to Darcy’s side, although when he straightened, Steve could see it was a man. A very hairy, very angry man, who vaguely reminded him of Howlett when the Canadian had gotten riled.

“MacBain, I assume,” he said conversationally. “Darcy said you might drop by. I hear you’ll be looking for new employment later, have you considered SHIELD? They do have pest control issues, but the dental plan is great and we could use more people we trust there.”

“WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW!” screeched Killian.

“Well, it’s past midnight, so…  _ Tuesday,” _ Pepper answered, looking at her watch before glancing up. “Oh Aldritch," she said pityingly, "this is the Avengers, normal isn’t what we  _ do.” _

“You aren’t an Avenger.”

“Eeeenh,” Tony made an annoying buzzer sound. “She is now. My vote is we let Pepper decide how to use her amazingly awesome fire powers, that so far have  _ not _ caused her to explode, to handle him.”

“Seconded,” Darcy and Nat said immediately.

“Ladies first,” Steve said with a small smirk at Killian. “You two can split what’s left-over.”

“Guys,” Clint said on the coms, “we have oh-eight-fours literally everywhere, please advise. And pass my congrats to the happy couple, but mostly advise.”

“Fire bad, fur good,” Steve said then looked at the shocked MacBain. “Assuming you didn’t bring anyone who was on fire?” he clarified, waving at Killian who was glowing much more now.

“Nay, I didna. Yer na what I expected.”

“Darcy has me well trained, but even if she didn’t, Ma was  _ Irish. _ I know not to ask, as long as you’re helping out. You  _ are _ helping out, right?”

“Aye. Yer lass is my chance ta get me brother back. For Barra, ge b'e air bith a bheir e. Ye ken?”

“Yeah, I can see that. I don’t speak Scots Gaelic, but I knew a guy once, he taught me a phrase. It’s either a sign of friendship or a fantastically dirty joke, you can’t tell with Mad Jack and nobody would confirm or deny it. Aon airson na h-uile agus gach aon airson?”

The man broke out laughing. “Aye, ye knew a Scotsman,” he said without telling Steve what it meant. “My clan’s taking care of the rest, so what now?”

“Up to Pepper, it’s her he messed with,” Steve said, nodding at her.

“Maybe I should let him live with his failure,” she mused, turning her back on Killian. Before he could warn her, the man leapt at her back and she swung a powered-up hand with a repulsor gauntlet into a flat handed upper cut to his chin, blasting his head, the rest of the body limply following, into a wall twenty feet away. “Oh my god... that was  _ really _ violent...”

“True,” Tony admitted slowly. “But you look great like this, the repulsor and the sports bra...”

“I think I understand why you don't want to give up the suits. Am I going to be okay?”

“No. You're in a relationship with me,  _ nothing _ will  _ ever _ be okay. But I had this twenty years ago when I was drunk, I can sort it out. I fix stuff. I’m the mechanic, that's what I do.”

“And besides, Maya’s going to be all over helping you,” Bucky pointed out from beside Steve.

“Really, Pepper,” Nat chided, “you’re our family, we won’t let this hurt you. Have a little faith, and I say this as a Russian and an assassin.”

And the burning oil rig was merrily crackling, the screams were fading out, and Steve smiled.

“Merry Christmas, Avengers.”

<^>

Clean up was  _ always _ a bitch and a half, Bucky knew this, that was why he volunteered to stay and help with the physical labor of saving the tanker before the flaming cargo ended up in the bay. The MacBains stayed with him, hauling material and swiftly delivering specialized fire extinguishers to the right places. SHIELD dropped by once or twice, mostly with materials and didn’t ask questions. That may have had to do with how Roy and Cailean looked at them with hard stares and a bit too much tooth in their smiles. He wasn’t picky.

“So, Darcy, what’s she like?” Cailean asked him at one point as he lifted a beam for the woman to grab a body from under.

“Sass, class and balls of brass,” he replied instantly. “She’s been saving me and mine forever. I love her.” He shrugged not knowing what else to say. “She’s the kind of dame who will risk her life and soul to spare someone she cares about pain, and then rip them a new one for being an idiot in the same breath. Don’t know how else to put it.”

Cailean nodded. “D’ye think she’ll accept what we did as payment? We didn’t take the main kill.”

“Don’t know what you’re paying for, so I don’t know,” Bucky said honestly. “But she never wanted you to kill  _ him. _ We knew it was either going to be Pepper or Tony in the end, with the smart money on Pepper. You showed up when we needed you, she’ll count it. She’s big on being where you need to be and doing what you need to do. It’s her thing.”

“We showed willing…. Aye, I can see it. Roy’s worried sick, though.”

“If you take the body over to remains disposal and ask them to check the dental for identification, I’ll see what I can do. Sergeant to Sergeant, you know?”

Cailean nodded and Bucky went to help Roy.

“Heard you’re worried about whatever deal you made with my girl,” he started noncommittally. “She does honor bargains, you know. She can be a bit slim on the hows and the whys, but if she says she’ll do a thing, the thing is done. In a way, letter of the law at least, if the spirit isn’t what she thinks is best for you.”

“I’ve no quarrel with her fairness,” Roy said quickly. “I just don’t know if we did enough to hold  _ our _ end.”

“You realize when she found out ‘MacBain will help’ she thought it was  _ one guy, _ right? If your people would follow you this far, do this much, it  _ means _ something. Those of us who lead see that. I was never the commanding officer, but I was an officer, and I see it.”

“Aye, but what we asked in return is… large.”

“Say you had a cousin and a friend and a comrade in arms who was held prisoner, attacked, tortured, experimented on, and I said I’d come ‘round to help out. Then you get to the final fight, and  _ every _ Avenger including Thor and Loki shows up to kick asses so you can focus. How giving would you feel?”

“I’d be a wee bit disturbed you knew how ta contact Loki, but saying I was feeling  _ giving _ would be to understate it.” He paused, a hand going through thick red hair that reminded Bucky of someone. “I think I see now. Yer lass values Stark and his fiery bride as I would my kin. We showed our good faith by coming out in numbers.”

Bucky tilted his head. He was better at the subtle shifts in language than Steve was, even Darcy was specialized out of need. Neither had spent much time with dock hands from all over to learn the ways things could  _ be _ different without sounding like it.

“No, you showed  _ goodwill.  _ Darcy won’t make you bow to anything. But you are now classed, in her words, as ‘good people’. That’s a quote, when she took off to get some sleep like she desperately needed, she told me ‘take care of MacBain, will you, he’s good people’. It’s hard to get that classification from her.”

Roy paused again in thought. There was something in the way his head angled that called up another memory. Bucky was used to grabbing memories where he could, even with the jumpstart from Darcy’s download, he needed to.

“Do you happen to know a Ciara Harrow? Bout yea high, red hair, has twin boys who rate a color code for escaping daycare?”

“How d’ye know Ciara?” Roy asked, suddenly a bit more hostile.

“I’m going to say that’s a yes. If it helps any, my best girl’s brother is tutoring the boys, my daughter is their honorary Aunt, and the last time I actually fell for a loop-trap it was the Harrow Twins playing with Christmas lights. That… was embarrassing. But higher level agents than I have had worse happen during a Code Chartreuse.”

“Oh, yeah, the bairns are MacBain blood alright. Barra’s going to be  _ thrilled. _ Then horrified, then thrilled again, until he makes up his bloody mind.”

“He can be whatever he wants as long as he knows the mother has the best assassins in the world on speed dial and the boys have called literal Norse deities for piggy back rides.”

“Subtle, you  _ aren’t.” _

“The one thing the asshole who caused this mess got right, ever since ‘the big dude with a hammer’ fell out of the sky, subtlety's kinda had its day. That big dude being my brother in law, so watch it around people I like.”

“Will do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Am-scray- pig latin for Scram, as in to get away.  
> Oh-eight-fours- 084 is the number code for "this is weird shit and we don't know what it means" in SHIELD.  
> Ge b'e air bith a bheir e- whatever it takes.  
> Ken- in this case meaning 'know' and not the mans name.  
> Aon airson na h-uile agus gach aon airson- all for one and one for all.  
> Rip them a new one- verbally lay into someone, really harsh reprimanding  
> Slim- following the exact promise without fulfilling the expected promise.
> 
> Notes:  
> Doing a trust exercise and watching a trust exercise are two very different tests if trust, as Darcy is now learning. She can trust pretty easily (for her understandable issues) if her body is at risk, but she gets nervous trusting the safety of others to someone else.
> 
> Final boss battles are a staple of video games, and much of the super hero crap Darcy has had to deal with is laid out in much the same way. A bunch of minor fights that give you what you need to fight the Big Bad, then the climactic battle at the end. That's a side effect of movie plot lay outs, but in canon, Darcy just sees it as how you fight super-villains.
> 
> The Avengers are treating Tony's proposal the way ordinary people would think of treating a marriage proposal, because to them, this is as big a commitment step as getting married. Every one of them on the tanker already feels married to their partner(s) minus the wedding anyhow, and a Stark wedding would be a circus and not the fun dare Clint to do trapeze kind.
> 
> Yelling at the umpire about the idiocy of a call is a respected American Baseball Tradition. Not sure why, but to my knowledge it has always been one.
> 
> Darwin Awards are given posthumously to people who did us the service of removing themselves from the gene pool with their stupidity. Killian is a Darwin Award recipient too dumb to know he was dead the moment he touched Happy.
> 
> The MacBain shifter gift is better detailed in Harrowing, the related work by ValkyriePhoenix, any inconsistency in description please chalk up to Steve having a tiny smidgen of Reality Sight and is seeing truths others don't. As always, she made the clan canon and I made the characters of Roy and Cailean. (Pronounced Kah-len for those who care.)
> 
> In 2012, when this is set, Christmas day was a Tuesday, and that was also the day the Battle of the Norco happened.
> 
> The Irish people I have known will all deny any rumor of superstition or 'old beliefs' but also would not step in a fairy ring if you put a gun to their heads. I'm assuming Steve and Sarah Rogers were that same way, they know not to look a gift fay creature in the mouth unless it's about to bite you. Or make a deal.
> 
> Scots have an odd sense of humor when dealing with non Scots. This is right up that alley.
> 
> Roy has no official rank in the military that VP and I have discussed, but he is the second in command to Barra MacBain, and that's what Bucky picks up on as "Sergeant" with regards to Roy. He acts like a highly regarded non-com officer, as Bucky was with the Howlies. This is also what Bucky relates to with people following Roy.
> 
> Roy, not knowing of the proposal is guessing Pepper and Stark are engaged based on everyone else's reactions.
> 
> Good faith, in Gaelic, which is Roy's first language, conveys a level of subservience. He's been thinking in that way because he is unused to getting anything from outsiders without bending, especially from law enforcement. Goodwill implies equality, which is how Bucky sees the interaction and knows Darcy would as well, were she made aware of the layers.
> 
> Roy is, as a reminder, the Harrow Twins uncle on their father's side. That's what is being connected, but Bucky won't bring the kids up first. He brings up Ciara with a side mention of the kids to get a reaction and gauge how Roy is related.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “I know that, you know that, and a goodly chunk of my listed victims know that, but the general public does not, will not and should not know that. It would mean exposing you, and your relatives with the gift."


	41. New Year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy has a homecoming, and the trio meet Liz and Paul Lewis.

Settling into the new year was… not as physically hard as becoming an Avenger had been for Darcy, but something else all together emotionally. For one, having missed the holidays entirely, she was gently berated into coming home to see her family. For another, Steve and Bucky refused to let her go alone, despite the fact only her Mom’s side would get how they really met. She got them to agree to telling her family they met in New York, involving something she had to sign a giant stack of NDA’s over, which was actually true if you counted ‘meeting’ as ‘in person’. Thankfully her family had all met Jane and seen the tiny scientist go stumbling into a topic she suddenly had to stop talking about, so they would believe that.

It didn’t make going home easier.

“Are you sure I have to do this?” she asked the boys as they straightened their ties.

“I want your parents to like me, Darcy,” Steve said earnestly, and his big innocent eyes really ought to be classed as a superpower.

“I want them to not be terrified of me,” Bucky said honestly, adjusting the glove on his left hand. “Hard to have that happen if the first they hear of me is that I was too busy being a Soviet and or Squid assassin to let people know rumors of my demise were greatly exaggerated.”

“You were brainwashed and held against your will, you had no bodily autonomy. It wasn’t your fault. Actually, I was driving your body for a good half of the shit you supposedly did, so if anybody is to blame here, it’s me. And yes,” she said, sticking a hand up, “I know it wasn’t my fault. I was showing you how  _ not _ your fault it was.”

“I know that, you know that, and a good number of my listed victims know that, but the general public does not, will not and  _ should not _ know that,” Bucky countered. “It would mean exposing you, and your relatives with the gift. I’m not risking that. We’ll handle public opinion the hard way, but before then I want your family on my side. I don’t want anybody in your family feeling torn about our relationship beyond whatever they may feel about two fellas and a dame all stepping out together.”

Darcy sighed. “At least Tony swung for a chauffeur, the RV is not something I want to show up in. How do I look?” She patted her hair, for once not jammed under a hat or in a firmly controlled braid or bun.

“You look amazing Doll,” Bucky said, pulling her hands down. “Stevie, tell her she looks gorgeous.”

“I’ve seen famous French art not half as pretty. Is it silly I’m glad you chose a dress?”

“No, you’ve liked me in dresses since high school.” Darcy sighed again. She was doing that a lot, she needed to cool it, but she couldn’t help it. At least she knew for a fact the classy burgundy hourglass dress looked fine. Pepper and Natasha had conspired together to get it made for her, and the tiny, ancient, Russian ball-buster Nat called a seamstress had made sure she knew it fit properly.

“Doll, this isn’t like you,” Bucky said, kissing her knuckles lightly. “Where’d the woman who tazed Thor go?”

“Oh, she’s here, and she can still taze you.” Darcy shook her head. “But she can’t exactly taze her Dad. Fighting is easy, family isn’t.”

“That never stopped you before.”

“Point. Let’s get this going.”

<^>

Steve was nervous, although he’d never tell Darcy that when she was already stressed. He knew she’d be torn between trying to tell him it was fine and using it as an escape route. Fortunately, he had enough experience with Darcy’s family due to swaps to fake confidence. They had no idea what he had first looked like, he reminded himself, and if they did, in this century it wouldn’t be something they could use to argue Darcy’s choices. Nobody would get away with telling Darcy she needed to find a man who could support her in the proper fashion. She’d probably laugh in their face and go on a tear about the economic structure similarity of Steve’s formative years and now.

Of course, that didn’t touch the worry about being a trio. He loved both of them, needed both of them, wanted to keep them safe and happy. But he wasn’t going to get far with that if he didn’t gather his courage and face her family.

Walking up to the door on Darcy’s left so Bucky could hide his left arm at her back, Steve pulled on his dancing monkey smile and braced. Not well enough though, as Darcy elbowed him as her mother opened the door. He was leveling narrowed eyes at Darcy when he registered Elizabeth Lewis staring at them.

“Uh… Mrs. Lewis. I uh, we brought flowers.” Oh, God have mercy on him, he was no better now than he had been when he was young and dumb. Thankfully, Bucky was quick on the draw and handed the carefully chosen potted African violet over with a soft “ma’am” and his heart melting aw shucks grin.

“Darcy… Why do you have no-longer-dead war heroes with you?”

“Uh, Mom, funny thing… Steve, Bucky, meet my Mom, Mom, meet my Swaps.”

“Swaps,  _ plural?” _ was all her mother said, and Steve now knew where Darcy got the scary from.

“Steve, you said that in the out loud voice,” Bucky informed him gently.

“I’m so sorry,” he stammered, feeling the warmth at his cheeks turning him red.

“Yeah, so these crazy people are mine now,” Darcy continued. “One, I want them that way, and two, the swap bonds are still there. We avoid using them but we can feel them.”

“I think you need to come inside,” Elizabeth Lewis said, stepping back to let them into a nice warm entryway with pictures on the wall of Darcy and her family. Steve smiled, it hadn’t changed much. “If anyone asks, they’re male models and we support your life choices.”

“Um, you do, though, right?” Darcy asked as she slipped her low heels off and guided Bucky to a bench to get the tied dress shoes he’d insisted on off. Steve just toed off his loafers. He brushed a hand gently against her arm, sharing comfort silently. “Even if my life choices were… a bit strange, you’d support them. Right?”

“Unless you’ve taken to hurting children or started talking in theaters. We don’t want you going to the  _ special hell, _ after all.” Darcy laughed at her mother’s Firefly reference. Then she pulled up short.

“Hey, stop that,” Steve ordered, pulling her into his arms. “Your kids turned out fine, mostly. I worry about Maya’s lack of scientific boundaries, but I’m pretty sure that’s not on you. You and Buck did what you could with those girls and one’s a superhero now.” 

Darcy nodded into his shoulder. Liz raised a questioning brow,

“Bucky was in… not a good situation, and your daughter helped him, Mrs. Lewis. What the two had to do to survive, and keep as many other people as they could alive, isn’t their fault.” He was ready to stare her down but she turned to Bucky.

“You and my baby raised kids?”

“Twenty-eight girls, but we wound up getting disowned by one. Lena’s... not real good with people.”

“By which you mean she went banana balls 'kill people for fun' insane,” Darcy said, squeezing free. “Can’t blame her, that place was designed to break us. We’ll be lucky if she’s our worst.”

“Darcy Neora Lewis, why didn’t you bring your children to visit me? You know I want grandkids!”

“I’ll just call Natasha and Maya then, yeah?” Darcy said. “Let me hit the bathroom, okay.”

“The bathroom?” Mrs. Lewis asked.

“Darcy wants to turn on the bug zapper and it hurts our ears,” Steve explained. “Being a spy left her with trust issues.”

“Eh, we all get quirks. What do you two want to drink?”

“Hot chocolate?” he asked hopefully. “Buck, you’ve got to try the hot chocolate, back when Darcy was in college one of the only things that got me through her first roommate’s existence was the hot chocolate mix from Darcy’s Mom.”

“It’s Swiss Miss and some spices,” Mrs. Lewis said. “But sure, one of the national heroes dating my daughter wants cocoa, he gets cocoa. You want it too, sweetie?” she asked Bucky, who just nodded.

“Good, make yourselves at home. Paul gets home in half an hour, try not to get spooked by the green pick-up truck.”

“Buck?”

“Yeah?”

“Are we in heaven?”

“Well, we  _ did _ die, Punk. Don’t ask questions.”

<^>

Bucky was honestly more than a little intimidated by Darcy’s mother, but her Dad was who drove home the strangeness. Apparently he was a history teacher who had met Liz (which she wanted to be called) as a freshman in college and been spurred to get a further degree by her angry mutters about inaccurate textbooks. Which meant he was well versed in what had been written about the two of them. Steve didn’t seem bothered at all.

“Why isn’t this as hard for you as it is for me?” he hissed lowly at Steve when Paul was turned to answer a question from the kitchen.

“I already hit the shock of you being in a history book, remember, I just didn’t recognize me. Not as weird as the two months re-learning how to walk. You adjust.”

“Really?” Paul asked. “I always wondered, the before and after photos, were they doctored at all to make the change larger?”

“Not to my knowledge. I was your daughter’s height, skinny as a rail, and living with something like seventeen disorders. I was pretty lucky our side’s eugenics fanatics didn’t get me.”

“God, Steve don’t even say that!” Bucky snapped at his longest held love.

“Oh, right, Jewish family. Sorry sir.”

Bucky groaned. “I meant, please do not remind me how close I came to losing you before you ever stepped  _ foot _ in Europe. I’m pretty sure Paul knows we had people who were horrible, because as you said, Jewish family.”

“There will always be awful people, James,” Paul said kindly. “It’s up to the not awful ones to stand up to them, and to encourage others to do the same. Evil triumphs when good men do nothing.”

“You sound like you’ve been listening to Steve longer than you could have been,” Bucky said suspiciously. He couldn’t help it; his default setting was distrust. Paul laughed.

“Your man’s not the only one who taught good morals, you know.” Bucky blushed and the doorbell rang.

“It’s the girls!” Darcy called. “Bucky honey, can you get it?”

Bucky smiled at how easy this had turned out for Darcy, he was really looking forward to getting Nat and Maya in on this normal family thing. It was weird as all hell, but it was fun. Until he opened the door to a sour faced woman who immediately started in on him about… he had no idea, actually.

“Darcy, it’s not the kids,” he called back lightly. “Ma’am, I don’t know you, I don’t know what your issues are with anyone here, but I need you to calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down!” she shrieked and Bucky had to give himself a mental corrective headslap on that one. Telling people to be calm almost never made them calm.

“Ma’am, I am a service veteran and my issues are so bad they’re classified. If you won’t calm down, I will take steps to keep everyone safe. Goodbye.” He closed the door and slumped onto the bench shaking as Darcy came and carefully set her hands in the right places to disable him if he got violent.

“Don’t mind Belinda, she’s made of spite and improperly constructed moral outrage,” Liz said, flipping on the sprinkler system until the shrieks faded. “Darcy, why are you preparing to dislocate James’ arm?”

“Oh, don’t worry, this one’s a replacement and Tony is working on a better Stark Tech option because Squids can’t design for crap,” Darcy said and Bucky tugged off the glove to wave metal fingers.

“We don’t really trust it,” he continued for her. “It’s sort of my worst weapon, and one time coming to and finding out brainwashed me tried to strangle Dollface was more than enough.”

“WHAT?”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot, Bucky was brainwashed, because Nazis suck. He’s better now and doesn’t have recurring conditioning slips often, but he worries.”

“Forgot? Really, Doll? You  _ forgot _ to tell them that.”

“I was stressed about coming out as polyamorous, okay? I didn’t think to warn them about the Squid Nazi thing, or the underground resistance thing, or the Cold War assassin thing, or the super heroine thing. Sorry. So, Mom, Dad, I’m the Lieu, yes that one, and  _ yes _ that  _ other _ one too. I didn’t pick the name, before you ask. Dugan did, six kinds of crazy as he is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> NDA- non-disclosure agreement, a legal prevention on talking about certain things.  
> Stepping out together- dating in a serious way.  
> Go on a tear- rant.  
> Specs- details in a machine.  
> Eugenics- called the science of gene cleaners, the bad science behind the concept of race purity.
> 
> Notes:  
> "Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated." was a statement made by Mark Twain after his obituary was mistakenly published.
> 
> While Darcy saved Bucky from a great deal of the stuff he'd have to face charges for, Bucky doesn't want her or her family to be studied because he used her as an alibi.
> 
> Darcy's dress looks like this dress: https://www.unique-vintage.com/collections/swing-dress/products/plus-size-1940s-burgundy-black-embroidered-floral-ava-swing-dress
> 
> Potted African violets are a good gift if you know the person likes gardening, which Steve does know about Liz, as he's seen her gardening before.
> 
> Some homes in America have a no-shoes policy, as the Lewis house does. Many more do not, so it is polite to let guests know up front.
> 
> Hurting children and talking in theaters are the reasons listed by Shepard Book in Firefly to get sent to the "special Hell" and that has become another Browncoat reference.
> 
> Liz Lewis had a Swap with Plato as a teen. Plato was an Olympic wrestling champion as well as a philosopher.
> 
> Swiss Miss is a cheap brand of instant hot chocolate. Adding a dash of cinnamon and nutmeg can really bring instant cocoa mix into a new level.
> 
> Steve shows himself as poorly coordinated in the chase scene, and I put that to not knowing where his feet were.
> 
> Paul is referencing Edmund Burke, who wrote “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
> 
> That one annoying neighbor is something we mostly deal with easily, but Bucky is seeing it bigger than it would appear because he's being stressed and has PTSD. Removing himself from the situation was necessary as he could not end the situation. As Bucky's PTSD came mostly from moral injury, being made to cross lines he didn't want to, he fears his own reaction most, and Darcy is here reassuring him that he can't hurt the people he cares for. The threat of incapacitation is being used to calm him, not hurt him, no matter how it looks.
> 
> Darcy knows her parents would know of the Lieu as a shadowy figure in Howlies history because they are into that sort of thing, and the Lieu who is an Avenger, because of news. They do not know about the Lieu as a HERO agent because they're not in a position to be recruited to HERO, so she only mentions two instances of the code name.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> "I still can’t believe you let me think you’d had a psychotic break, when you were really fighting Nazis. You _know_ I totally condone fighting Nazis.”


	42. New Family, Old Enemies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy greets more family, and finds out her birth one rolls with the crazy better than expected.
> 
> Steve moderates a dinner discussion that could have gone much, much worse.
> 
> Bucky gets a call and flies home to take care of an old enemy and new allies.

“And so, now we have Bucky back, my people are preparing to yank any and all rugs out from under the new and not really improved Hydra, and my kids just texted that they’re in the driveway,” Darcy finished, moving to open the front door.

“I’m honestly still stuck on ‘he got better’ as an excuse for how he broke brainwashing,” her Dad said.

"It worked for the guy who got turned into a newt," she heard Steve defend.

“Nat, Maya, come in!” she said to her girls, ignoring him. Storing vital memories and the chair and well, all of it, was a can of worms she didn’t really want to open for her Dad yet. “Meet your Nana Liz, devochki.”

“Allo Mama,” Nat said with a hint, tiny though it was, of shyness. Darcy smiled at her and kissed her cheek as she kicked off shoes and moved to greet her Nana Liz.

“Hey Mom,” Maya greeted much more easily. For all Darcy had worried about sending her away so young, it had resulted in Maya not being as emotionally reserved as Natasha. As Natka and Vikitsa it had been the reverse.

“Do I get cheek kisses too?” Clint asked.

“Only if you sit down and take your boots off Clint. Oh, Aunt Leora, hi let me get that bag for you.”

“I’ve got it,” Nat said and whisked the insulated bag that, with any luck, held home-made food fit for gods, and Darcy was in a good place to make that assessment, Thor's pop-tart fondness aside.

“Thank you, Natasha. Such a good granddaughter,” Darcy heard her Mom say.

“Uh…”

“Oh don’t be silly, sweetie,” Aunt Leora chided. “Your Uncle Joseph and I were told about the thing where you might have to be a cosmic mensch someday. We were the ones who would have gotten you if anything had happened to your parents. Now, let me look at my niece’s daughters. With that hair I could easily get Natasha a date with the Feinstein’s boy.”

“No, no hooking my baby up,” Darcy warned. “That’s my job and I did a good one. That’s Clint, also called Hawkeye, he’s an Avenger, gets a decent salary from SHIELD, and makes very good cookies. He’s Natasha’s.” Darcy saw the disappointment on Aunt Leora’s face, and she eased up. “You can help me find a nice girl for Maya, and maybe look into things for any of the others we find.” 

“I don’t want anything serious,” Maya said. “I’m still recovering from the unfairness that I live down the hall from THE Doctor Ross and she’s straight as a ruler.”

“And dating a guy who can become a two-ton, super powered hero with tantrum problems,” Darcy added.

“Bruce is negotiable and I like Hulk, he’s a cute kid, but it’s moot as Betty isn’t into women. Why are the pretty and smart ones always straight?”

“Mine aren’t,” Darcy added a little smugly.

“Yours signed up for untested human enhancement, and risked both your lives on a bunch of emotionally damaged four-year-old kids, respectively. Are you sure you stand by the ‘smart’ comment?”

“Oi! I’m standing right here, young lady!” Bucky snapped with no heat.

“I’m going to take Miss Leora here back to the kitchen,” Clint said. “You guys need to learn to modulate the weird or you’ll break the sane people. Come on, I brought what I need to make rugelach, baking is very relaxing as a coping strategy.”

“Is it sad that Barton is a better adult than any of us?” Maya asked her.

“No,” Darcy said carefully. “He put effort and study into the art of acting moderately normal and well adjusted for his niece and nephew. We just wing it. It’s like how Tony can’t draw and Steve can, but Steve gets lost with coding. There’s practice involved.”

“Oh. That makes me feel better. Thanks Mom.”

“Sure thing, sweetie.”

<^>

Steve liked Darcy’s family. They had to do a few rounds of ‘he got better’ when explaining Bucky’s situation, because it was very complex and Clint was protective of civilian sanity, but they survived it.

Uncle Joe had cracked up laughing when he saw Steve and said something about a book to Darcy, who blushed. He wasn’t a bad guy though, when Steve got to know him. It was a bit overwhelming how much family he suddenly had, not because you bond with those who fight beside you, but by totally normal means. The Lewis clan had summarily adopted him with a speed that made him think Darcy was the reserved one in the bunch. Which was saying something considering…

“Angel, have you told them about your brothers?”

“When did I get sons?” Liz asked, blinking.

“New Mexico and New York,” Darcy answered. “That thing Jane couldn’t talk about but kept accidentally talking about? That got me Thor, yes that Thor. The Battle of New York got me Loki.”

“The one you said tried to invade the planet?” Uncle Joe asked. “That’s an odd and self-destructive hobby, maybe we should host an intervention.”

“That would be hard, he went back to Asgard, but if I don’t get a letter by the end of this year, I’m asking Jane to rig me a break-and-enter device for the Bifrost. I don’t trust his dad,” Darcy said. “Besides, he’s scary smart and  _ way  _ good with the magic so had he actually tried to invade, we’d be conquered. There was a body autonomy issue, but thankfully a good enough hit with a taser knocked it loose and he could ask for help in not invading for reals. He had to look like he was invading though, because the person who controlled him was watching.”

“Hate the Mad Hatter,” Clint grumbled and Nat tweaked his ear.

“No moping. Wait, watch, plan, and when you can actually get something done on that front, strike before he can dodge.”

“Yes Nat.”

“Autonomy is a touchy subject for us all,” Steve explained gently. “But I like Loki, he doesn’t care at all about Captain America, he just cares that Steve Rogers is worthy of the woman he calls sister. That’s really nice for me. I know the dancing monkey outfit is important to people, but sometimes I just want to be plain old Steve again. Minus the horrible health stuff.”

“I think that’s perfectly normal to want,” Uncle Joe said. “Being seen for you, not what you’ve been made into. Validating your inner self is important.”

“No work at dinner,” Darcy said automatically. “If Steve wants a therapist, we will find him one not related to him, okay?”

“You’re a shrink?” Clint asked with slight horror.

“I see you met a bad one,” came the immediate response.

“Actually, SHIELD psychiatric is highly competent, at least, for their area of expertise,” Natasha said grudgingly. “We just don’t fall into it. The DSM has nothing for alien mind control artifacts or being raised to kill people. Moral injury is a specialty thing, and the Avengers have enough trust issues that opening up to a specialist is too difficult. That’s why we adapted our own methods. Clint bakes, Steve draws, Papa and I do ballet, Mama mothers us all, Tony builds things, Bruce meditates, and Pepper is learning Krav Maga. We also have non-combatants who bully us into talking. I like Bucky’s sister Skye. She makes things… clean.”

Steve thought of the way Skye always talked like people’s minds were very complex computers, and the sterile banks of servers in the Tower. He could see how it would be cleaner for Natasha than the messy emotional side of things. She wanted to feel the way people did, and understand them in ways she hadn’t been allowed to, but it was hard for her to get there.

“Skye is good at that. I like Jemma, we use math, it works for me. I like that you can solve things and sort data with it. There is a lot more data to sort now. The internet is great, but big.”

“Personally, I like Phil, he already knew my history and I don’t worry he’ll get upset if I talk about Dad or Barney,” Clint added. “But talking to Bucky and Loki was also… I don’t like being alone.”

“Nobody does,” Aunt Leora said before firmly changing the topic to something happier in a pointed way.

Everything was fine until Bucky’s phone rang.

<^>

Bucky was finally relaxing as he picked dishes up to help clean up after dinner. Because his life was one big morbid joke, his phone rang and he answered to hear Jarvis.

“Code Chartreuse was called at SHIELD HQ, and the Harrow twins have boarded a quinjet and set the auto-pilot for the Tower. Agents Barton and Romanova have their phones turned off, and you are the last Avenger with clearance to handle them.”

“What.”

“We are about to receive guests that historically require specialist supervision. Please return. Please? Last time they were here unsupervised I had to patch ten holes in security that should not have mattered because why would anyone take marbles into the vent system? I don’t want to be alone when they get here.”

“Jarvis, are you  _ scared _ of the Harrow boys?”

“…yes. But I’m _ more  _ scared of what could scare them enough they ran away from SHIELD, given what we know of that organization.”

“We’re on it.” He hung up on the distressed AI and stuck his head into the living room. “Guys, we need to scramble, a Code Chartreuse is headed for the Tower in a hijacked plane.”

“But the boys are too little to reach all the flight gear!” Darcy exclaimed.

“I… uh, that’s on me,” Clint said. “I gave them auto-pilot lessons in case of emergency. But as mischief prone as they are, they do know not to use it irresponsibly.”

“Where’s Ciara?” asked Steve.

“Mission, Eye only,” Nat said, standing. “It was lovely meeting Mama’s family, and the food was delicious, Nana Liz, but we have to go rescue a friend’s four-year-old twins.”

“But, you’re not leaving yet, are you?” Aunt Leora said plaintively. “I wanted to know more about Darcy’s family. I’m still not totally satisfied with ‘he got better’ as an explanation. James is a very nice young man, I want to know he’s taken care of.”

“You can talk on the phone or something, Aunt Leora,” Darcy said firmly. “We need to get to New York, where’s the quinjet parked? I hope you didn't land too far off, Tony's chauffeur is off for the night.”

“I’ll drive,” interrupted Uncle Joe. “You’re not going to risk your life, again by the way, without us there to help you. I still can’t believe you let me think you’d had a psychotic break, when you were really fighting Nazis. You  _ know  _ I totally condone fighting Nazis.”

“Let me get my purse,” Liz said. “Paul, grab the medical kit, Leora, can you grab some stuffed animals out of the cedar chest please? I won’t pretend to know what you’re fighting Darcy, but those kids will need support. I might not have raised close to thirty daughters, but by god I know how to comfort a child.”

“Don’t bother fighting it, Dollface,” Bucky warned. “I’ve seen that look before, it means we couldn’t stop her with a battalion of Sherman tanks.”

“You’ve never met my mother, where did you see that?”

“Your face, you two have the same ‘running will only delay the inevitable’ face.”

“I hate you a little right now. Okay, Maya, would you mind staying and house-sitting for them? If it’s what I think it is I want my family safe. There’s an emergency contact list with the numbers of everyone in town we’re related to on the inside of the upper pantry door in the kitchen. Don’t burn anything down unless strictly necessary.”

“On it Mom. I won’t let Nana and Grampy’s house get blown up, and I won’t let any of the uncles or cousins get hurt.”

“Good girl,” Liz said as she reappeared.

Before Bucky could fully process any of it, they were landing right before another small plane touched down. Nat nodded at him and Clint and they went to secure the Twins prior to the chaos that hit everything near them getting out of hand. Caddell practically launched into his arms as Clint caught Collin.

“Hey there, little man. What’s wrong?”

“Gibearnach,” he hiccuped. “Gibearnach uilebheistean.”

“I don’t speak Gaelic, Caddell. I know everything is scary and upsetting right now, but I can’t help you unless I know what I’m fighting.”

“There were squid monsters,” he said softly. Bucky’s heart stopped.

“Okay, thank you for telling me, that was very brave. Squid monsters are scary.” Bucky focused on keeping his voice level but projecting to the adults as Collin squirmed out of Clint’s grasp to climb up Bucky’s left. Fortunately, a side effect of the serum was the ability to carry two distraught four year old children if they didn’t squirm too much.

“Monsters?” Joe asked. “They stole a plane because…”

“Uncle Joseph, if you plan on seeing tomorrow, do not finish that sentence,” Nat said. “There is only one thing those two would ever call a ‘squid monster’, and that’s an image everyone on this roof should hate. Who had the squid monster?”

“Ceann Cnàimh,” Collin said over Bucky’s shoulder from where he was hiding his face in the long hair that his brother had tugged free of the band. “He said he’d feed us to the squid monster if we didn’t behave. It got lots of heads, so lots of mouths ta feed, an’ we were being bad little brats.”

“Well now Ceann Cnàimh gets fed to the Nat Monster,” Clint said as Natasha’s face darkened.

“Nat Monster is the bestest Monster,” Caddell said with authority. “Nat Monster scares all th’ bad monsters into hidin’, because Nat Monster is a better monster than they are.”

“That she does,” Bucky said, sharing a fang bearing grin with his daughter. “And the guy with the squid on his side is wrong, the plural of brat is brat’ya, and you’re good brothers.”

The twins giggled at his joke. They liked his language puns.

“Okay, brat’ya, let’s get you inside so Nat Monster and Darcy Monster can plan,” Clint said. “Darcy Monster brought extra family and they have snugglies for you.”

Inside, he got himself situated on the extra big armchair recliner and let the boys find good places to snuggle, noting an interesting desire to stay close to his metal arm. They carefully selected a neon blue platypus and a faded purple tribble out of the stash Leora gathered, and let Liz lay a thick blanket on the three.

“I used to give this to Darcy,” she mused. “She insisted it had magic no-monster-attack powers because she never got attacked by monsters when using it.”

“Monsters would be silly to attack Darcy Monster,” Caddell said sleepily.

“Mhmm, she taught Nat Monster how to scare bad ones,” Collin finished.

“Even the best Monsters have to be children at some point,” Paul said, following the logic perfectly. “Do you want to grow up to be like Nat Monster?”

“No, I wanna be a seidmadr like Unca Loki,” Caddell said.

“I wanna be an Agent, like Mommy,” Collin added. “Is Mommy safe from the Squid Monsters?”

“I’m not sure the Squid Monsters won’t become deep fried calamari,” Bucky said. “But we can ask Unca Paul and Auntie Liz to go tell Steve you want to make sure.”

“Okay,” came two sleepy voices and then the boys became lumps under the shelter of a metal arm and a magic blanket. Paul and Liz nodded at him and went to tell the strategy team about the boys’ worry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Can of worms: big messy issue.  
> Devochki: girls (Russian)  
> Allo Mama: Hi mom (Russian)  
> Natka: Natasha's baby name.  
> Vikitsa: Maya's baby name.  
> Mensch: good person, special helper (Yiddish)  
> Rugalach: a tasty cookie found in many Kosher cook books.  
> Mad Hatter: Darcy Code for Thanos.  
> Shrink: therapist.  
> Code Chartreuse: the Harrow boys broke out of child care.  
> Scramble: slang for getting ready for an emergency quickly.  
> Eye only: a play on Eyes Only, meaning classified, but meaning only Fury knows.  
> Gibearnach uilebheistean: squid monsters (Scots Gaelic)  
> Ceann cnàimh: Bonehead (Scots Gaelic)   
> Brat: in American slang, a misbehaving child, but in Russian it means brother  
> Brat'ya: brothers (Russian)  
> Seidmadr: Master Sorcerer (Asgardian)
> 
> Notes:  
> Steve is referring to a line in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where someone accuses a supposed witch of turning him into a newt, then defends his statement with "I got better" when called on it.
> 
> My Maya is both a lesbian, and crushing major on Dr. Betty Ross.
> 
> Uncle Joe is the same guy who bought Darcy a book on Captain America back in Bodies in Time when Darcy didn't know he'd survive. He also got her out of the psych hospital to give her home-based mental health care when her doctors couldn't treat her, due to the aforementioned 'medical training doesn't cover gods and monsters and magic' thing.
> 
> Steve makes a distinction between the image (Captain America) and the man (Steve Rogers) because he knows his name and face have been used to do things he wouldn't support personally. He acknowledges the Captain's necessity, but still wants to be seen as Steve sometimes, that's healthy.
> 
> Moral injury is psychological damage taken from being forced over personal lines of honor and behavior. Almost everyone can be coerced into fudging the lines they draw between good and bad, and many people experience minor moral injury, but something severe like Clint faced would take a specialist, and there aren't many for that type of trauma, in addition to the trust issues in treating it.
> 
> Krav Maga is a very effective fighting style we see Trish Walker in Jessica Jones learn and use. I like to think the same instructor teaches Pepper.
> 
> I realize Jarvis seems a bit out of character here, but he's still recovering from AIM and the events of IM3, and so is showing his more human, fragile side to better communicate how not able to handle this he is.
> 
> Uncle Joe is using his normal-person psych background here, which is not the right tool, so he erroneously concludes the boys got scared of an imaginary monster in the closet or under the bed. Nat knows that, but she's too upset to tell him that he isn't using the right skillset, so she tells him the real reason the boys are scared instead.
> 
> Calamari is a type of cooked squid meant for eating. It's tasty and probably the only kind of squid Bucky likes. His implication is that Ciara Harrow is way too scary to take on, and Hydra (Squid Nazis) will lose against her, badly.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “One day, ma’am, I fully believe I will wake to find out my job has been made irrelevant because Jarvis and your daughter took over the world as benevolent dictators and nobody is complaining.”


End file.
